AT&T this week announced that it has deployed a next-gen open dis-aggregated IP edge routing platform into its production environment with support from Broadcom, Cisco, and UfiSpace.
The hardware platform being used for this edge application is identical to that previously announced for AT&T’s IP/MPLS core, demonstrating the true openness of the hardware.
The identical open hardware from UfiSpace that is being used for the core will be used for the edge applications. Common hardware enables consistent maintenance processes and sparing. The Broadcom Jericho2-based hardware designs have been accepted by OCP, and compatible products are available from other ODMs. The UfiSpace portfolio consists of three components: a 40x100G line card system, 10x400G line card system, and a 48x400G fabric system. These building blocks are deployed using the highly flexible Distributed Dis-Aggregated Chassis (DDC) design in various configurations to build routers with capacity anywhere between 4 Tbps to 192 Tbps.
Cisco’s innovative and feature-rich IOS-XR Network Operating System provides the management and control functions for the solution. Some of the key features for the peering use case are BGP Flowspec, unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF), and port mirroring which collectively will allow AT&T fine granular monitoring and mitigation actions for security threats such as Directed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Andre Fuetsch, AT&T’s CTO for Network Services
The first IP edge use case is peering – the system that connects AT&T’s IP network with that of other Internet Service Providers (ISPs). But this is just the tip of the iceberg; we are working with Cisco on developing additional edge use cases that will include broadband, IP content, Ethernet, mobility, and VPN services.
Ram Velaga, SVP and GM, Core Switching Group, Broadcom
Jericho2's scalability allows the hardware platform to be used from the core to the edge of the AT&T network, while enabling a thriving ecosystem that supports their vision of a disaggregated, flexible, and simplified network infrastructure.
