Carrier Ethernet & Ethernet Service Provisioning (MetroPRO)

Multivendor Provisioning System for Carrier Ethernet Service Providers

Today 95% of all Internet data traffic either originates or terminates on Ethernet ports. Ethernet technology has been commercialized and deployed widely due to its intrinsic advantages such as network simplicity, high bandwidth capacity, scalable and flexible service provisioning, and most importantly, significant savings in capital investments for equipment and service deployments.

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has defined Carrier Ethernet as a ubiquitous, standardized, carrier-class service, which is distinguished from LAN-based Ethernet by five attributes:

• Standardized Service – a ubiquitous service that offers local and global connectivity through the use of standardized equipment;
• Scalability – scalability of bandwidth from 1Mbps to 10Gbps+, in granular bandwidth increments;
• Reliability – the ability for the network to detect and rapidly recover from faults without negatively impacting users;
• Quality of Service – service Level Agreements (SLAs) that deliver end-to-end performance based on committed information rate (CIR), frame loss, jitter and delay;
• Service Management – rapid service provisioning and the ability to monitor, diagnose and centrally manage the network.

Fiber expansion is cited as a top priority for Ethernet Service Providers (ESP’s) across the globe, with fiber becoming increasingly available for both commercial and residential customers.

Currently the main challenge providers are facing with Carrier Ethernet services is provisioning them over multivendor networks. This complex and time consuming process is highly error prone, with the errors requiring substantial amounts of time to diagnose and resolve.

Intelligent automation is the answer to the difficulties posed by provisioning Carrier Ethernet services. MetroPRO offers such automation, greatly simplifying service activation in the process.

MetroPRO’s network discovery mechanism provides operators with an end-to-end view of the network. Once deployed MetroPRO examines the nearest device and within minutes automatically discovers the complete network. The network’s topological information is then presented to network operators via an intuitive graphical web interface, which is also used to automatically configure customer circuits. To provision a service, the operator selects the 'A' and 'Z' end points of a circuit and MetroPRO takes care of the rest – automatically configuring network devices in between and updating the network’s logical topology.

Features:

• Vendor independent;
• Auto discovery and auto rendering of network interfaces;
• Scalable multiplatform architecture;
• Intuitive web-based GUI.

Benefits:

• Virtually eliminates human errors from the Carrier Ethernet provisioning process;
• Time-to-Revenue is decreased from minutes or even hours to several seconds and customer satisfaction is improved;
• OPEX expenses related to service provisioning are decreased.