GMPLS Forum to pull off interoperability demo at NGN

GMPLS (Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching) may be a couple years off, but a large group of vendors will complete the first interoperability demonstration of the new technology at this week’s Next Generation Networks show in Boston. The involved companies are Agilent Technologies, Cisco Systems, Data Connection, Juniper Networks, Net Plane, Net Test and Sycamore Networks.

“This is the first ever public live multi-vendor GMPLS event and it has a mix of edge and core vendors,” said Anand Sen Gupta, vice president of marketing for the MPLS Forum and a product manager for Agilent.

The event was written and planned by an independent team and will be run by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab.

“What [we are] trying to achieve is recognition all the issues,” Sen Gupta said. “[Then we] look at results and take them to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).”

The big advantage to using GMPLS will be its lack of proprietary technology and the operational cost savings, according to Sen Gupta. But from this stage Sen Gupta estimates it will take another two years until GMPLS sees actual network deployments.