Design of a shared memory Carrier Ethernet switch compliant to Provider Backbone Bridging-Traffic Engineering (IEEE802.1Qay)

Abstract

Carrier Ethernet is emerging as a new transport paradigm across metropolitan and core networks. Provider Backbone Bridging-Traffic Engineering or PBB-TE was standardized in the IEEE as 802.1Qay as a mechanism to provide a dedicated transport service at the Ethernet layer. This paper discusses implementation of the PBB-TE standard using shared memory switch architecture, though the same architecture argument can be extended to implement MPLS-TP (the other manifestation of Carrier Ethernet). While shared memory switch architectures have been well investigated, we provide to the best of our knowledge the first carrier-class aggregation switch implemented in a single Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This low-cost implementation paves the way for advances in Carrier Ethernet technologies to be made available to the access part of the network using rapid prototyping and commercial off the shelf components. The switch architecture supports multiple QoS levels and implements circuit emulation to transport traditional circuit services over a packet backbone. A rigorous simulation study validates our effort.