Ixia Demonstrates MPLS-TP Services at MPLS 2011

CALABASAS, CA, (October 16, 2011) – Ixia (NASDAQ: XXIA), a leading, global provider of converged network testing solutions, participated in an MPLS 2011 interoperability demonstration with Isocore, successfully validating several advanced MPLS and MPLS-TP functionalities in a live test scenario using IxNetwork, Ixia’s award-winning and comprehensive protocol testing application. The results from these tests will be presented as part of a white paper released at the convention, taking place from October 16 – 19th, in Washington, DC. Ixia will also be part of a joint MPLS-TP panel discussion with Verizon and Cisco on Tuesday, Oct 18th from 11am to 12:30pm. The comprehensive interoperability event includes network elements from Alcatel-Lucent, Brocade Communication Systems, Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, and NEC Corporation.

Ixia’s solutions successfully validated the MPLS-TP and carrier Ethernet tests against the participating vendors. This event is the first interoperability test to include some of the more advanced MPLS-TP features. Ixia was able to test the following MPLS-TP functions:

Single Hop BFD LSP

Single Hop Y.1731 LSP

Multi Hop BFD LSP

Multi Hop BFD PW nested LSP

Multi Hop Y.1731 LSP

In addition, Ixia verified interoperability with several vendors’ 100 Gigabit Ethernet implementations. Using its higher speed Ethernet (HSE) testing solution, Ixia performed:

CFM (802.1ag) testing

L2oMPLS (Martini) services testing

VPLS services testing

MPLS-TP is expected to be a low-cost L2 technology that supports connection-oriented packet transport services with a similar degree of predictability, reliability, and OAM found in existing transport networks. As such, it has garnered tremendous interest from the service provider community and will be a key area of product development for network equipment manufacturers over the next several years.

Test equipment will play a critical role in the functional, interoperability, and performance validation of MPLS-TP implementations. Ixia's IxNetwork is the only test application that supports new MPLS-TP technologies. IxNetwork helps to accelerate the development and deployment of MPLS-TP features and functionality.