Huawei showcases metro ethernet switches

With the global launch of the Quidway CX suite, Huawei is the first vendor to provide carrier-class end-to-end solutions covering the core layer, the convergence layer and the access layer. The Quidway CX is expected to become a key infrastructure product for the metro Ethernet market, which is expected to grow 27 per cent annually reaching hit USD 7.7 billion by 2008, according to Infonetics, the leading data networking and telecom market research firm.

'Huawei's Quidway CX series switches are a new generation of convergence and access switches designed to address the carrier-class features of the metro Ethernet,' said Wang Jiading, vice president, Huawei Technologies Middle East and North Africa region. 'Some of the key benefits include delivering increased protection, reliablity, a high-level of security and easy management in addressing service requirements for next generation networks, 3G, and broadband access, among others.'

The Quidway CX series switches are the first to adopt carrier-class high availability (HA) design with redundancy of key components (including main control boards, switch boards, power modules and fan units). These functionalities ensure real carrier-class protection at each layer and node on the metro Ethernet so that failure of any single node will not affect the service operation of the system.

The Quidway CX series switches also assure carrier-class reliability on the whole metro Ethernet through Ethernet over Resilient Packet Ring (EoRPR). This guarantees protection of switching within 50ms so that services are not interrupted but restored quickly in time of a network failure. The switches also provide features such as Selective QinQ, VLAN Translation, TDMoPSN, and ATM emulation, which facilitate flexibility in networking and service deployment on a metro Ethernet.

'The launch of this new generation of switches reflects Huawei's R&D effort in the integration of IP and telecom networks, and its focus on developing technologies to facilitate the transformation to internet protocol (IP) based networks. Comprehensive IP network solutions that can adequately meet key requirements of telecom users for reliability, security and manageability is the need of the hour. As an industry leader in IP technology, Huawei has answered the call with the carrier-class metro Ethernet switches which address issues of service operation, network planning, network protocol and equipment capability to help operators move up the telecom industry value chain,' added Jiading.

Quidway CX series switches have now successfully passed field trials by multiple operators and won the Carrier Ethernet Certification of Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). This clearly demonstrates that data communication products of Huawei meet all operator requirements for constructing and developing carrier Ethernets. To date, Huawei has built carrier Ethernets for many global top telecom operators, including True of Thailand, JAZZTEL of Spain, Telefonica of Latin America, and Fibernet of UK.