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Integrated Control Plane

Metaswitch's Integrated Control Plane is a portable source code product that can be used to implement a MPLS/GMPLS and IP Routing control plane on a huge range of network equipment.

The Integrated Control Plane supports the full range of options described on the MPLS/GMPLS and IP Routing web pages and is suitable for any router, switch, optical or WDM device. It is scalable from embedded customer premises equipment (CPE) to massive devices with control plane function distributed across multiple processors or blades. A wide range of options for high availability are also available.

With the first portable, longest standing, and most mature solution in the industry, Metaswitch is the undisputed leader in MPLS solutions which are used throughout the world by many of the leading manufacturers of communications equipment.

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MPLS/GMPLS Expertise

Benefits of DC-MPLS include


Integrated Control Plane Architecture

Integrated Control Plane Architecture

The two main components of the Integrated Control Plane are the DC-MPLS and IP Routing product suites.

The Integrated Control Plane includes components that facilitate a rapid time to market for an equipment vendor building virtually any type of networking device. For the majority of vendors, custom integration effort is only required between the control plane and the switch fabric (such as packet IP, packet MPLS, TDM, WDM or other), and between the control plane and the agent managing and controlling the vendor's device.

Metaswitch can also supply reference code and/or professional services to assist with the integration. Metaswitch's Configuration Safe Store may also be useful on certain devices to simplify management agent integration effort.

Integrated MPLS Transport

The Route Selection Manager (DC-RSM) is used for MPLS transport. It mediates between DC-MPLS and DC-OSPF or DC-ISIS to allow automatic calculation of a route (very likely a TE-route) through the network. This includes the logic needed to find diverse paths, for example with Fast Re-Route (RFC4090) and end-to-end restoration (RFC4872).

DC-RSM includes support for many packet applications, including traditional IP/MPLS, MPLS-TP and OTN.

Integrated Layer 3 VPN Solutions

Metaswitch provides a complete Layer 3 VPN control plane solution for Customer Edge (CE) and Provider Edge (PE) routers through the pre-integration of DC-MPLS with DC-BGP and DC-VPN Manager.

DC-VPN Manager is an extension to DC-BGP and works in conjunction with DC-MPLS, and possibly other routing products (such as DC-OSPF, DC-ISIS, and DC-RIP). It provides VPN routing and forwarding software that facilitates the implementation of BGP/MPLS Layer 3 VPNs.

More information on DC-VPN Manager

Integrated Optical Transport solutions

Metaswitch's Integrated Control Plane provides a fully integrated optical control plane encompassing DC-MPLS with OIF UNI and E-NNI extensions. As well as extensions in DC-RSVP and DC-OSPF, interaction between these products is achieved using Metaswitch's DC-RSM and includes

  • OIF TNA address translation
  • hierarchical inter-area TE routing, as specified for the OIF E-NNI.

A single instance of the DC-MPLS stack can provide OIF UNI-C, UNI-N, NNI, MPLS and GMPLS functionality simultaneously.

For more information on Metaswitch's optical transport solutions, see GMPLS Control Plane for SONET/SDH, GMPLS Control Plane for G.709 OTN, and DC-LMP.

Integrated PCE solutions

Metaswitch provides a complete and fully portable Path Computation Element (PCE) solution for OEMs and carriers with the pre-integration of Metaswitch’s control plane technologies. PCEs solve problems that arise for path computation in the next-generation (G)MPLS network, and without needing to replace any existing network hardware.

DC-PCE is available pre-integrated with Metaswitch’s industry leading MPLS, OSPF, IS-IS and CSPF products, enabling significant savings in time to market, cost and risk.

More information on PCE.


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