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| Carriers & Service ProvidersWireless OperatorsMSO/Cable OperatorsMunicipalities/UtilitiesEnterprise/Government | Press Releases  07 February 2006Fifteen vendors to demonstrate interoperable converged MPLS services at MPLS world congress MFA Forum and EANTC Showcase Largest Carrier-Class MPLS DemoCONTACTS: MFA Forum Contact: Heather Hartley Porchivina & Associates Phone : +1.415-246-6061 Email: heather@papr.com EANTC Contact: Carsten Rossenhövel Phone : +49.30.31805950 Email: cross@eantc.de FREMONT, CA - February 7, 2006 --The MFA Forum announced today that 15 vendors featuring more than 30 devices will demonstrate interoperability, resiliency, multicast and Quality of Service (QoS) assured MPLS network services to support emerging triple-play and business applications. Taking place this week at MPLS World Congress in Paris, France, the demonstration can be viewed in the Interop Event Area. The test event was organized by the European Advanced Networking Test Center in Berlin, Germany (EANTC) with support from the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) and endorsed by the MFA Forum. Participants, of which four are taking part for the first time, include Agilent Technologies, Alcatel, BATM Advanced Communications, Ciena Corporation, Cisco Systems, Huawei Technologies, Ixia, Lucent Technologies, MRV Communications, Nortel, RAD Data Communications, Riverstone Networks, Spirent Communications, Tellabs and Tpack. The demonstration, showcasing the results of a hot-staging event that took place at EANTC labs in Berlin last month, will focus on converged residential and business network services implemented and supported by an MPLS network. The demand for a converged, multi-vendor backbone supporting new and legacy services, requires stable protocols that can offer resilience and detection along side packet prioritization, bandwidth reservation and guaranteed delivery. For more details, a white paper is available online at http://mfaforum.org/tech/MPLSWorldCongress2006-WhitePaper.pdf. "MPLS multi-vendor interoperability remains a strong concern for service providers, as converged backbones are being increasingly deployed," said Carsten Rossenhoevel, Managing Director Research & Manufacturer Testing EANTC AG, and MFA Interoperability Working Group chair. "We revisited network protection interoperability and verified Quality of Service (QoS) enabled routing, a mandatory precondition for the upcoming RFCs on integrated MPLS quality and differentiated services (DiffServ-TE). The test helped to improve the interoperability readiness of participating vendors substantially." "The support of several services over a single converged backbone makes it imperative for the backbone to be resilient, available and serviceable (RAS). This interoperability testing on end-to-end traffic engineering, protection and L2/L3 multicast is a significant milestone," said Lily Lu, of Cisco Systems, MFA Forum board member and Marketing Committee chair. "The MFA Forum is pleased to note the continued industry interest in MPLS interoperability testing of carrier-class MPLS in a multi-vendor environment." The public showcase in Paris will also highlight network services such as BGP-based VPNs, Ethernet, ATM, TDM, and multi-segment pseudowires and VPLS (multipoint-to-multipoint Ethernet service). MFA Forum Members to Speak at MPLS World Congress An MFA Forum tutorials, MPLS-based Virtual Private Network Services, will be presented today, Tuesday, February 7, 2006, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. On Wednesday, February 8, 2006 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., MFA Forum Chairman and President Andrew G. Malis will present an MFA Forum Update detailing recent events in the MFA Forum and status on current work items. About the MFA Forum The MFA Forum is an international, industry-wide, nonprofit association of service providers, equipment vendors and enterprise users. The focus of the Forum is to advance the deployment of multi-vendor, multi-service packet-based networks, associated applications, and interworking solutions for telecommunications and networking. The Forum is driving the convergence of ATM, Frame Relay and IP/MPLS technologies in the global telecom industry through interoperability initiatives, implementation agreements, and educational and marketing resources and programs. The Forum currently has more than 60 members. For Forum membership information please contact Alexa Morris, executive director, at (510) 608-5914 or via e-mail at amorris@mfaforum.org. Additional information about The MFA Forum is available online at http://www.mfaforum.org. About EANTC The European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) offers vendor-neutral network test facilities for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers. Primary business areas include interoperability, conformance, and performance testing for IP, MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, and Voice over IP-related network technologies and applications. EANTC provides network-related services including consulting and seminars for MPLS and other networking technologies. For more information about EANTC contact Carsten Rossenhovel, Managing Director, at +49.30.3180595-0 or via e-mail at cross@eantc.com. http://www.eantc.com | News Events Press Releases Webinars | |||||||||
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