ETX-205A Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Device
ETX-205A Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Device from RAD Data Communications
Key Point include:
· Multirate FE/GbE combo ports allow flexible service offering in one unit for capex and opex savings
· Flow-based traffic management with H-QOS per EVC for SLA enforcement at customer premises, enabling MEF-certified EPL and EVPL services
· Ethernet OAM and performance monitoring at wire speed, for reliable and accurate SLA monitoring, enabling efficient diagnostics and troubleshooting
· Enhanced RFC-2544 analyzer for SLA verification, ensuring customer satisfaction immediately after turn-up
· Synchronous Ethernet and IEEE-1588v2 PTP, seamlessly bridging synchronization domains
The ETX-205A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device offers Ethernet demarcation functionality for business
services as well as cell-site gateway functionality for 2G, 3G, and 4G/LTE
mobile backhauling applications. The RAD ETX-205A provides end-to-end service control and
performance management across packet networks.
The ETX-205A delivers SLA-based business services to the customer premises over
native Ethernet interfaces, terminating over any type of packet network.
ETX-205A transports up to five Gbps of user traffic while ensuring SDH/SONET-like
performance and Five Nines reliability.
ETX-205A delivers IP VPN, VoIP, and dedicated Internet access over the same physical link as a Layer-2 LAN-to-LAN
service, all with differentiated quality of service and end-to-end monitoring. It can
also deliver E1, T1, and NxDS0 circuits. Incorporating RAD’s SyncToP™
synchronization and timing over packet feature set, ETX-205A utilizes standard technologies to ensure highly accurate
phase and frequency recovery and distribution over both the physical and packet layers.
All RAD ETX-205A units are equipped with SFP/copper combo Ethernet ports, enabling flexible mixture of fiber optic and
copper interfaces in one device. The SFP ports accommodate a wide range of Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet SFP
transceivers, allowing service providers to seamlessly connect customers located at
different distances from the device.
MARKET SEGMENTS AND APPLICATIONS FOR ETX-205A
ETX-205A is used in the following
applications:
Ethernet demarcation device – ETX-205A separates the service provider network, the access provider
network, and the customer network,
providing proactive service monitoring and easy fault localization for Ethernet and pseudowire services throughout
the entire network (see Figure 1)
Mobile demarcation device – ETX-205A is installed at the operator tower and controller sites equipped with Ethernet
and PDH ports, connecting the 2G/3G/4G/LTE NodeB or eNodeB to the packet network, providing
sophisticated synchronization and traffic management as well as service assurance capabilities, including
proactive service monitoring and fault identification throughout the entire network (see Figure 2).
ETHERNET
Classification
Traffic is mapped to the Ethernet flows using very flexible classification criteria
based on incoming port (port-based all-to-one bundling), VLAN ID, VLAN priority, IP precedence, DSCP, Ethertype,
and IP/MAC source/destination address. Classification is defined for both VLAN
tagged as well as untagged traffic.
Layer-2 Control Processing
The ETX-205A can be configured to pass through Layer-2 control frames (including
other vendors’ L2CP frames, and with optional MAC change) across the network, to peer supported protocols
(IEEE 802.3-2005 and LACP), or to discard the L2CP frames.
OAM
Featuring ultra fast, hardware-powered processing, ETX-205A performs OAM and PM measurements in line rate with
maximum precision, offering the following powerful benefits:
· Immediate detection of loss of continuity (LOC), ensuring under 50 ms protection switching
· Highly accurate frame loss measurements of live traffic
· Flow-level (per CoS) monitoring, enabling simultaneous processing of multiple OAM sessions with E-LAN and
E-Tree support
· Non-disruptive MAC and IP level loopback testing of network integrity.
ETX-205A provides these types of Ethernet OAM:
· Single-segment (link) OAM according to IEEE 802.3-2005 for remote management and fault indication,
including remote loopback, dying gasp
with SNMP trap, and MIB parameter retrieval. Active and passive mode are supported.
· End-to-end connectivity OAM based on IEEE 802.1ag that enables Ethernet service providers to monitor their
services proactively and guarantee that customers receive the contracted SLA
· End-to-end service and performance monitoring based on ITU-T Y.1731. Fault monitoring and end-to-end
performance measurement include
delay, delay variation, frame loss and availability.
Traffic Management/QoS using the RAD ETX-205A:
Different service types require different levels of QoS to be provided end-to-end.
QoS can be defined per subscriber as well as per service. QoS has three aspects: rate
limitation, traffic shaping, and traffic prioritization.
Traffic policing is applied per flow or group of flows, and operates according to the
dual token bucket mechanism based on user-configurable CIR + CBS and EIR + EBS. Traffic can be limited to the line rate or
the data rate.
Forwarding
Every flow per EVC or EVC.cos has its own queues and scheduler supporting strict
priority and weighted fair queues (WFQ). Queue blocks of eight queues per EVC are
scheduled and shaped, forming an H-QoS model with shaped services and prioritized
classes of service. The WRED mechanism is used for smart packet drop.
The VLAN priority bit in Ethernet frames can be modified at network ingress according to the ‘color’ of the frame. This
allows service consistency and QoS continuity across color-aware (drop eligible enabled) as well as color-unaware
networks.
Smart SFPs
Integrated management of MiRICi smart SFPs provides TDM (E1/T1/E3/T3/ OC-3/STM-1) connectivity over PDH or
SDH legacy networks. ETX-205A supports configuration and statistic collection for
the smart SFP TDM port.
E1/T1 PSEUDOWIRE
Services
ETX-205A enables delivery of legacy TDM services over packet networks.
Encapsulation
TDM traffic can be encapsulated in the following modes:
· CESoPSN – CES (Circuit Emulation Services) over PSN, for framed E1/T1 traffic, per IETF RFC 5086
· SAToP – Structure-Agnostic TDM over Packet, for unframed E1/T1 traffic, per
IETF RFC 4553.
The encapsulated pseudowire connections can be transmitted over the following types of PSN transport networks:
• UDP/IP (UDP over IP)
• MEF 8 (Ethernet).
OAM
The following TDM OAM is provided:
· Connectivity verification.
· PW parameter validation
· Delay measurements with 1μsec resolution
Forwarding
ETX-205A forwards MEF-8 PW bundles via Layer 2 (E-Line). The device forwards UDP/IP PW bundles via Layer 3.
ETX-205 Quality of Service (QoS)
The quality of service prioritization technique differs according to the transport network type:
· MEF 8 – Outgoing pseudowire packets can be assigned to a queue directly. Priority is also defined by means of
Layer-2 p-bit marking
· UDP/IP – Outgoing pseudowire packets can be assigned a ToS value that defines the egress priority queue and
the Layer-2 p-bit marking. The priority queue of the egress router interface can be assigned directly or via DSCP.
Additionally, the Layer-2 p-bit marking can be done via DSCP value or assigned directly.
RESILIENCY
Dying Gasp
The RAD ETX-205A reports power failures to defined network management stations by
sending an IEEE 802.3-2005 message or SNMP trap, thus enabling the unit to properly disconnect from the network
with notification of the reason for the service problem.
Fault Propagation
The unit provides a user-configurable fault propagation mechanism in the network-to-user or user-to-network
direction.
When a link failure is detected or OAM failure received, ETX-205A can shut down the affected port or forward the OAM
failure message. The fault propagation mechanism enables routers and switches connected to both ends of the link to
reroute the traffic to the redundancy
path.
Link Protection
ETX-205A provides the following network interface protection modes:
· 802.3ad link aggregation (LAG), providing 1:1 link protection with Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
support
· Dual homing (1:1), allowing ETX-205A units to be connected to two different
upstream devices.
Ethernet Path Protection
ETX-205A applies standard ITU-T G.8031 Ethernet Linear Protection switching for fast protection of one or more EVCs from end to end. The standard implementation ensures
interoperability with third-party devices. With standard APS functionality, Ethernet OAM messages provide bandwidth-efficient unidirectional or
bidirectional 1:1 protection.
The EVC protection path can be configured on the same network port,
enabling the transport network to provide an alternative path for the working and protecting paths. It can also be configured on separate network ports, adding protection at the access
layer and enabling load balancing on network interfaces by splitting traffic between the two network ports. The performance of the hardware-based Ethernet OAM together with
protection switching for physical layer failure ensures fast protection in any scenario. The flow level protection provides a full set of manual commands for maintenance purposes.
TIMING AND SYNCHRONIZATION
ETX-205A implements the RAD SyncTop™ synchronization suite (see Figure 2), allowing cellular backhaul providers to
meet the necessary synchronization requirements without the need to invest in dedicated timing equipment at every
base station. ETX-205A timing features
include:
· Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) per ITU-T G.8261-G.8264
· IEEE 1588v2 Precision Time Protocol, slave, working in the following modes:
- Frequency –Slave reconstructsremote clock using sync and delay request/response from master to
slave (no time-related status/alarms, or TOD)
- Time –Slave uses regenerated frequency, A high quality (PRC/PRS) CSM clock improves the time
reconstruction. Time-relatedstatus/alarms and TOD are provided
- Frequency and time – Slave provides time information in addition to frequency.
· IEEE 1588v2 Precision Time Protocol transparent clock with hardware-based time stamping as well as ToD (time of
day) synchronization
· External clock in/out interfaces (T3/T4) supporting 2MHz, 2M bits, and T1 frequencies
· 1 PPS, 10 MHz signal phase and frequency
synchronizationPrimary/secondary
clock redundancy with stratum 3/3E holdover performance.
Transmit Clock Signal
The E1 / T1 transmit clock source can be
one of the following:
· loopback –Clock is retrieved from the port's incoming (Rx) data
· internal – Clock is provided by system internal oscillator
· domain – Clock is provided by clock domain (relevant only for SYE or PTP option)
· pw – Clock is provided by PW bundle (relevant only for SYE or PTP option).
The PW source clock quality is limited to the following:
- Stratum 1/2 (default)
- Stratum 3E
- Stratum 3
- Stratum 4.
MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY
The following security protocols are provided by ETX-205A to ensure client server communication privacy and correct
user authentication:
· SNMPv3
· RADIUS (client authentication)
· TACACS+ (client authentication, authorization, and accounting)
· SSH (secure shell communication session)
· SFTP (secure file transfer).
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Databases and scripts of commonly used commands can be easily created and applied to multiple units using command
line interface.
Trap Synchronization
Traps are sent with sequence IDs to network manager groups, to enable the managers to detect when traps are lost
and request the traps be sent again.
Zero Touch Provisioning
IP address and mask, default gateway, and software and configuration files can be
automatically obtained using standard DHCP client functionality. This enables seamless node setup and configuration
for quick and scalable network setup and deployment as well as configuration consistency when nodes must be
replaced.
Ports
The ETX-205A can be managed using the following ports and applications:
· Local management via an ASCII terminal connected to the RS-232 port
· Out-of-band management via a dedicated management port.
· Remote inband management via user or network ports routed via separate
VLANs, Telnet, or an SNMP-based management system.
MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS
RFC-2544
The RAD ETX-205A provides a built-in RFC-2544 wire-speed traffic generator and analyzer
for unidirectional and bidirectional testing of throughput, latency, and frame loss.
Based on standard OAM messages, the tests can be simultaneously performed
over multiple flows, at the EVC.CoS level. Enhanced RFC-2544 functionality provides
service-oriented KPI analysis. SLA conformance is measured per service
bandwidth and packet size, within a user-defined amount of time, for faster
service introduction.
Loopback Tests
Layer-2 and/or layer-3 network integrity can be tested by a non-disruptive
loopback performed per flow, with swapping of MAC address and optionally
IP address. When the loopback is activated, ETX-205A exchanges the source
and destination MAC/IP addresses of the incoming packets. This loopback passes
through Ethernet bridges (MAC address) and routers (IP address).
COMMON CONFIGURATIONS INCLUDE:
ETX-205A/AC/19
ETX-205A/AC/19/SYE
ETX-205A/AC/19/PTP
ETX-205A/AC/19/4E1T1
ETX-205A/AC/19/4E1T1/PTP
ETX-205A/ACR/19
ETX-205A/ACR/19/SYE
ETX-205A/ACR/19/PTP
ETX-205A/ACR/19/4E1T1
ETX-205A/ACR/19/4E1T1/PTP
ETX-205A/DC/19
ETX-205A/DC/19/SYE
ETX-205A/DC/19/PTP
ETX-205A/DC/19/4E1T1
ETX-205A/DC/19/4E1T1/PTP
ETX-205A/DCR/19
ETX-205A/DCR/19/SYE
ETX-205A/DCR/19/PTP
ETX-205A/DCR/19/4E1T1
ETX-205A/DCR/19/4E1T1/PTP
ETX-205A/ACDC/19
ETX-205A/ACDC/19/SYE
ETX-205A/ACDC/19/PTP
ETX-205A/ACDC/19/4E1T1
Product data sheet for the ETX-205A (pdf)
