Atrica Introduces New A-1180 Multi-Port Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Device

Santa Clara, CA - Atrica, the Carrier Ethernet Company, recently announced the A-1180 Multi-port Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Device. Building upon Atrica's position as the first vendor to combine the numerous benefits of Carrier Ethernet Transport technology with innovations in traffic engineering/management and Ethernet service delivery, the A-1180 is the first Carrier Ethernet demarcation device to enable end-to-end service delivery across third-party networks – as well as Atrica-based networks – with Quality of Service (QoS) control for each individual service, backed by industry-leading management simplicity.

The A-1180 can connect to an Atrica-based metro transport network directly or across any third-party network. This unique functionality allows service providers to smoothly upgrade their service offerings to ones capable of meeting the stringent, end-to-end Service Level Agreements (SLAs) demanded by today's mission-critical Enterprise applications.

The A-1180 has eight 10/100Base-T Ethernet interfaces on the customer network side, each of which provisions an Ethernet Virtual Circuit (EVC) that corresponds to a service. It has an uplink slot on the service provider network side, which supports both Fast Ethernet (FE) and Gigabit Ethernet (GE) uplink modules. The FE and GE uplink modules utilize pluggable SFP transceivers, using either dual strands or single strand fiber of various distances. This allows service providers to cost effectively connect the A-1180 to fiber local loop.

Owned by service providers and located at the customer premise, the A-1180 provides a clear demarcation point between the customer and the service provider network. Besides delivering managed services to customers via MEF-UNI with QoS control for each service, the A-1180 has all the necessary carrier-class management and OAM functions that are essential for service providers to monitor network health and performance up to the demarcation point.

"Our mission at AFS is to cost-effectively bring Ethernet to the WAN, and we are achieving that mission by leveraging advanced products such as the Atrica A-1180 in our state-of-the-art infrastructure," said Dave Rusin, Founder and CEO of AFS. "With the A-1180 and the other products in the Atrica Carrier Ethernet portfolio, we are providing our customers with scalable, reliable, flexible Ethernet Transport Services with guaranteed end-to-end SLAs and a variety of QoS levels."

Applications

With the A-1180, service providers can support a wide breadth of mission-critical enterprise service offerings, including:

• Ethernet UNI for E-Line and E-LAN Services in an Atrica Environment: The A-1180 functions as UNI for E-Line and E-LAN services. Operators can provision E-Line and E-LAN services in a point-and-click manner. Hard QoS is ensured for each service, and 50ms protection can be guaranteed within Atrica's edge and core network. The A-1180 supports Connection Admission Control (CAC) and allows service providers to provision CIR/EIR and delay/jitter bound for their SLA.
• Ethernet UNI for E-Line and E-LANServices in Any Existing Edge/Core Network: The A-1180 is an ideal demarcation device for operators who want to deliver high-value Ethernet services to business customers. The A-1180 can be connected directly to the existing provider network via its FE or GE uplink interface and it can be managed, either in-band or out-of-band, from a central location.
• Ethernet UNI for E-Line and E-LAN Services in Off-Net: Carriers who want to offer Ethernet services outside their own regions may use off-net from a third-party service provider. The A-1180 can be used to connect the end customers on the access side and the off-net on the network side. The modular uplink provides the most convenient way to connect to the off-net.

Features and Benefits

Eight 10/100Base-TX Access Ports – More Services and Applications: In a compact form factor, the A-1180 provides eight access ports that allow service providers to provision as many as eight services or use some of the access ports for other purposes such as connecting the out-of-band management port of other CPEs at the same customer location, allowing network management to be extended to those CPEs.

Flexible Deployment and SLA Extensions over Third-Party Networks: The A-1180 uses a modular design for the uplink interface to the provider network. Service providers can flexibly choose the uplink module that best fits the last mile network, or migrate smoothly from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet last mile. In off-net applications, the A-1180 can be deployed without replacing the service provider's existing network. Off-net deployments, integrated with the hard SLA delivery and management simplicity of Atrica's Carrier Ethernet solutions, expand the revenue generating capability for a service provider while optimizing capital expenditures.

Per-port Rate Limiting and Priority Queuing – Customized QoS for Each Service: The A-1180 supports configurable QoS such as rate limiting and traffic prioritization for each service. The A-1180 supports CAC and allows service providers to provision CIR/EIR and delay/jitter bound for their SLA.

Full Integration with ASPEN – Easy Service Provisioning and Management: The A-118 is fully managed by ASPEN, Atrica's industry-leading network management and service provisioning system. Ethernet services can be provisioned in a point-and-click manner with the A-1180 as the endpoint of the services.

OAM – Easy Remote Trouble Shooting: The A-1180 supports such OAM functions as Link Fault Propagation, Dying Gasp (a.k.a. Last Gasp), Ethernet loopback, standard traps, as well as DDM for monitoring optical performance on the physical layer.

"The addition of the A-1180 to our Carrier Ethernet product suite illustrates our commitment to continuing to drive the state-of-the-art of Carrier Ethernet technology," said Scott Messenger, vice president of Marketing for Atrica. "We work closely with our carrier customers to develop solutions that solve their real-world business and technology challenges, and are proud that the A-1180 will help solve their need to deliver end-to-end services across third-party networks with QoS control for each service."

SOURCE: Atrica