Alcatel pushes into MPLS space

(Telephony) Alcatel has introduced a multi-layered product that uses multi protocol label switching (MPLS) to connect disparate metropolitan area networks (MANs).

The PowerRail is a transparent MAN (T-MAN) services router intended to let a user with local area networks (LANs) on different sides of a city send information packets through the area in-between – the so-called “cloud” – using MPLS.

“They can have control over more than one local area network but the system sees it as one,” said Ron Mohr, senior marketing manager in Alcatel’s PowerRail product line.

Virtual LANs (VLANs) where a user can apply a VLAN tag on a packet, have it travel through the network and reach the other side as if it came from the same VLAN, will be the first use of the technology, he added.

Mohr admitted that the ability to retain the tag and keeping it as one VLAN is not unique to Alcatel, but noted that Alcatel adds the ability to route the packet after it drops off the MPLS pipe, as well as the ability to put several different streams within the MPLS stream.

“If you wanted to have three, four, five, 20 VLANs going through a single MPLS pipe we could do that (and) drop them off at different points,” he said.

No MPLS standard has been set, an especially prickly point for Alcatel which does “everything on hardware,” said Mohr. This speeds delivery but “the downside is as soon as you burn an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) and somebody changes it” it can create a problem, he acknowledged.

“We have very highly programmable ASICs that we’ve created here for PowerRail. As the standards change, we will be able to manipulate our coding within our hardware structure so that we can accommodate the new standard without having to re-burn our ASICs,” he promised.

Although the vendor community is enamored with MPLS, network service providers have yet to list it as a “must-have” on their shopping lists. As networks become more complex and the protocol languages within and adjoining those networks proliferate, interest should pick up exponentially, Mohr predicted.

“Right now people see it as a neat toy,” he said. “I believe that as the speeds on the edge (of the network increase) and they need to utilize the cloud more and more, nobody on the edge wants to worry about what’s in the middle. If I send a packet out it should get across and I don’t care how it gets across. MPLS is going to be a great resource for that.”