EANTC demo shows multivendor interoperability for converged metro cloud

Software-defined networking (SDN) enabled metro optical transport systems vendor BTI Systems says it has taken part in a European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) interoperability demonstration focused on converged metro cloud environments. The demonstration showed interoperability between the BTI 7800 Intelligent Cloud Connect platform and products from Cisco, ZTE, and "another leading router vendor" BTI did not further identify.

The 7800 is designed to converge Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) core routing functions with optical transport in a platform provisioned via Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF; see "Intelligent Cloud Connect from BTI Systems targets SDN-enabled cloud services"). NETCONF is an IETF-defined standard control protocol that enables management applications to configure network elements in real-time. The BTI 7800 Series NETCONF interface is implemented as a full YANG model.

The multi-vendor demonstration showed the BTI 7800 Series' abilities to support MPLS Fast Reroute (FRR) for network resiliency and SDN provisioning with NETCONF. In the EANTC NETCONF Provisioning Test, the BTI 7800 was centrally configured using a Cisco Tail-f NETCONF client, providing automated network configuration.

EANTC is a test center that provides vendor-neutral network performance test facilities for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers.

BTI asserts the EANTC results highlight that the BTI 7800 optical transport platform can interpret the specs and behavior of other vendor equipment, thus demonstrating multi-vendor interoperability across both control and data planes in an open networking environment. The full results are available in an EANTC white paper. They will also be discussed at the MPLS SDN World Congress, V6 World Congress and NFV & SDN Summit 2015, taking place March 17-20 in Paris.

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