[c-nsp] Virtual CPE as a service on Metro-E last mile - Suggestions/inputs required

[Tom Hill]

On 21/05/15 21:54, Lukas Tribus wrote:
> 802.1ah (PBB) does MAC hiding, both you need an ASR9k for that, not exactly
> a cheap bridging CPE...

If you step outside the world of Cisco for but a moment, you'll find
relatively inexpensive devices like this one, which do support PBB:

 http://www.ciena.com/products/3916/tab/overview/

Similar devices exist with Adva and probably MRV, too. Cisco do not seem
to compete well (or at all) in this market. Though in familiar style, do
be aware that Ciena require a PBB license to be added before those
features will work.

Having used 3916s as CPE switches on the end of long tails (up to 1Gbit)
combined with more capable Cisco routers located within a data centre (a
mixture of RSP720 & NPE-G1) I can confirm that this model does work, but
for a few caveats:

1. 50% of the time, the customer will want to simply connect a switch to
your switch. Architecturally, you will need to ensure they can't create
loops.

2. in the UK, at least, many customers wanted some sort of routed
failover - and very few of our wholesale providers would transport LACP
frames. In the cases where we needed to provide ADSL failover, an extra
Cisco ISR was also shipped to site with an HWIC, and this made the build
somewhat more expensive.


Of course, our routers weren't capable of popping off PBB headers, but
if you're at the point where you need to scale back your MAC usage, I
suspect you can afford to place 9001s in aggregation locations anyway. ;)

HTH

-- 
Tom