ADVA Optical Networking and Metaswitch Networks Showcase Radical New SDN-based Approach to Customer Edge Routing

Demo Reveals How to Remove Enormous Data Strain from Provider Edge Routers

October 14, 2014

ADVA Optical Networking announced today that it’s jointly hosting a demonstration with Metaswitch Networks at this year’s SDN and OpenFlow World Congress. The demonstration presents a radical new approach to routing the enormous and ever-growing volume of network traffic. Focused primarily on ADVA Optical Networking’s FSP 150EG-X and Metaswitch Networks’ Gulfstream SDN controller, the demonstration highlights how to automatically optimize network path selection to offload traffic from provider edge (PE) routers and keep it flowing purely between customer edge (CE) routers. Such a unique approach has never been shown before and has tremendous cost-saving implications.

“Changes in the traffic patterns in large carrier networks have challenged existing planning models, design rules and their accompanying economics,” said Christopher Liljenstolpe, director of solutions architecture, Metaswitch Networks. “With more data moving horizontally across edge infrastructures, existing routers are being burdened with unnecessary loads. What we have demonstrated today is an efficient way of offloading consumer edge traffic from traditional routers by using ADVA Optical Networking’s FSP 150EG-X and Metaswitch Networks’s Gulfstream SDN Controller.”

One of the key elements of ADVA Optical Networking’s joint demonstration with Metaswitch Networks is how adding open programmability to the ADVA FSP 150EG-X brings with it capabilities that would simply not be possible otherwise. The Gulfstream SDN controller enables the ADVA FSP 150EG-X to intelligently switch aggregation flows. Traditionally the remit of far more expensive equipment, such as all-layer routers, the flow-aware ADVA FSP 150EG-X is now able to filter and forward control frames going between CE router and PE router. The Gulfstream configures the filters that recognize the control frames and injects them. Then, the ADVA FSP 150EG-X provides the Layer 3 forwarding of traffic directly between CE routers, based on the Gulfstream’s Layer 3 forwarding entries. The impact on PE routers is substantial. Eliminating the burden of huge amounts of CE-CE traffic enables the PE router to focus purely on its intended purpose, routing PE-to-CE traffic.

“What we’re showcasing here is something remarkable, something truly special. This isn’t an incremental network improvement, it’s a huge step forward,” commented Christoph Glingener, CTO, ADVA Optical Networking. “Our collaboration with Metaswitch Networks reveals to the industry an entirely new way of routing edge-to-edge traffic. By taking the strain away from provider edge routers, you’re not only able to achieve significant operational cost savings, you’re also able to drive better network efficiency. Two critical items in today’s overtaxed infrastructures. The level of openness, of transparency, of programmability in our hardware once again highlights our true SDN capabilities. Ultimately, it’s all about programmability by design.”

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