ML-Series Card Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the ML-Series cards (ML1000-2, ML100T-12, ML100X-8) for the Cisco ONS 15454 (SONET) and Cisco ONS 15454 SDH platforms. It lists Ethernet, SONET/SDH capabilities, Cisco IOS and Cisco Transport Controller (CTC) software features, with brief descriptions of selected features.

Note For information on ML-MR-10 card, see Chapter 27 "ML-MR-10 Card Overview.".

This chapter contains the following major sections:

•ML-Series Card Description

•ML-Series Card Feature List

ML-Series Card Description

The ML-Series cards are independent Gigabit Ethernet (ML1000-2) or Fast Ethernet (ML100T-12 and ML100X-8) Layer 3 switches that process up to 5.7 million packets per second (Mpps). The ML-Series cards are integrated into the ONS 15454 SONET or the ONS 15454 SDH.

The Cisco IOS command-line interface (CLI) is the primary user interface for the ML-Series card. Most configuration for the card, such as Ethernet port, bridging, and VLAN, can be done only through the Cisco IOS CLI.

However, CTC, the ONS 15454 SONET/SDH graphical user interface (GUI), also supports the ML-Series card. SONET/SDH circuits cannot be provisioned through Cisco IOS, but must be configured through CTC or Transaction Language One (TL1). CTC offers ML-Series card status information, SONET/SDH alarm management, Cisco IOS Telnet session initialization, Cisco IOS configuration file management, provisioning, inventory, and other standard functions.

The ML100T-12 card features twelve RJ-45 interfaces, and the ML100X-8 and ML1000-2 cards feature two Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) slots supporting short wavelength (SX) and long wavelength (LX) optical modules. All three cards use the same hardware and software base and offer similar feature sets. For detailed card specifications, refer to the "Ethernet Cards" chapter of the Cisco ONS 15454 Reference Manual or the Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Reference Manual.

The ML-Series cards feature two virtual packet-over-SONET/SDH (POS) ports, which function in a manner similar to OC-N/STM-N card ports. The SONET/SDH circuits are provisioned through CTC in the same manner as standard OC-N/STM-N card circuits. The ML-Series card POS ports support virtual concatenation (VCAT) of SONET/SDH circuits and a software link capacity adjustment scheme (SW-LCAS).

ML-Series Card Feature List

Table 3-1 provides the list of features supported on the ML-Series cards.

Note For detailed information on features supported by ML-MR-10 card, see Chapter 27 "ML-MR-10 Card Overview."

Table 3-1 Features Supported on ML-Series cards

Feature
ML100T-12
ML100X-8
ML1000-2
Layer 1 Data

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•IEEE 802.3z (Gigabit Ethernet) and IEEE 802.3x (Fast Ethernet) Flow Control

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol

Y

Y

Y

•100BASE-FX full-duplex data transmission with Auto-MDIX (ML100X-8)

Y

Y

N

SONET/SDH

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•High-level data link control (HDLC)

Y

Y

Y

•(GFP-F) framing mechanism for POS

Y

Y

Y

•POS virtual ports

Y

Y

Y

•LEX or Point-to-Point

Y

Y

Y

•Cisco HDLC

Y

Y

Y

•Protocol/Bridging Control Protocol (PPP/BCP) encapsulation for POS

Y

Y

Y

•VCAT with SW-LCAS

Y

Y

Y

Layer 2 Feature Set

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Transparent bridging

Y

Y

Y

•MAC address learning, aging, and switching by hardware

Y

Y

Y

•Protocol tunneling

Y

Y

Y

•Multiple Spanning Tree (MST) protocol tunneling

N

N

N

•Integrated routing and bridging (IRB)

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.1Q-in-Q VLAN tunneling

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and IEEE 802.1W Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.1D STP instance per bridge group

Y

Y

Y

•Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching (EoMPLS)

Y

Y

Y

•EoMPLS traffic engineering (EoMPLS-TE) with RSVP

Y

Y

Y

•VLAN-transparent and VLAN-specific services (Ethernet Relay Multipoint Service [ERMS])

Y

Y

Y

IEEE-RPR (802.17b)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Bridging as specified in the IEEE 802.17b spatially aware sublayer amendment

Y

Y

Y

•Shortest path forwarding through topology discovery

Y

Y

Y

•Addressing including unicast, multicast, and simple broadcast data transfers.

Y

Y

Y

•Bidirectional multicast frames flood around the ring using both east and west ringlets.

Y

Y

Y

•The time to live (TTL) of the multicast frames is set to the equidistant span in a closed ring and the failed span in an open ring.

Y

Y

Y

RPR-IEEE Service Qualities

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Per-service-quality flow-control protocols regulate traffic introduced by clients.

Y

Y

Y

•Class A allocated or guaranteed bandwidth has low circumference-independent jitter.

Y

Y

Y

•Class B allocated or guaranteed bandwidth has bounded circumference-dependent jitter. This class allows for transmissions of excess information rate (EIR) bandwidths (with class C properties).

Y

Y

Y

•Class C provides best-effort services.

Y

Y

Y

RPR-IEEE Design Strategies Increase Effective Bandwidths Beyond Those of a Broadcast Ring

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Clockwise and counterclockwise transmissions can be concurrent.

Y

Y

Y

•Bandwidths can be reallocated on nonoverlapping segments.

Y

Y

Y

•Bandwidth reclamation. Unused bandwidths can be reclaimed by opportunistic services.

Y

Y

Y

•Spatial bandwidth reuse. Opportunistic bandwidths are reused on nonoverlapping segments.

Y

Y

Y

•Temporal bandwidth reuse. Unused opportunistic bandwidth can be consumed by others.

Y

Y

Y

RPR-IEEE Fairness Features Ensure Proper Partitioning of Opportunistic Traffic

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Weighted fairness allows a weighted fair access to available ring capacity.

Y

Y

Y

•Aggressive fairness is supported.

Y

Y

Y

•Single Choke Fairness Supports generation, termination, and processing of Single Choke Fairness frames on both spans.

Y

Y

Y

•RPR-IEEE plug-and-play automatic topology discovery and advertisement of station capabilities allow systems to become operational without manual intervention.

Y

Y

Y

RPR-IEEE Multiple Robust Frame Transmissions

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Service restoration time is less than 60 milliseconds after a station or link failure.

Y

Y

Y

•Queue and shaper specifications avoid frame loss in normal operation.

Y

Y

Y

•Fully distributed control architecture eliminates single points of failure.

Y

Y

Y

•Operations, administration, and maintenance support service provider environments.

Y

Y

Y

•EoMPLS on RPR-IEE

N

N

N

•IP forwarding on RPR-IEEE

N

N

N

•Wrapping, the optional IEEE 802.17b protection scheme

N

N

N

• Steering, the protection scheme

Y

Y

Y

•Layer 3 control path routing

Y

Y

Y

Cisco Proprietary RPR

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Ethernet frame check sequence (FCS) preservation for customers.

Y

Y

Y

•Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error alarm generation

Y

Y

Y

•FCS detection and threshold configuration

Y

Y

Y

•Shortest path determination

Y

Y

Y

•Keep alives

Y

Y

Y

EtherChannel Support

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Bundling of ports

Y

Y

Y

•Load based on MAC addresses

Y

Y

Y

•Load Sharing based on incoming VLAN

N

N

N

•Load sharing based on Port

Y

Y

Y

•IRB

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.1Q trunking

Y

Y

Y

POS Channel

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Bundling the two POS ports

Y

Y

Y

•LEX encapsulation only

Y

Y

Y

•IRB

Y

Y

Y

•IEEE 802.1Q trunking

Y

Y

Y

Layer 3 Routing, Switching, and Forwarding

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Default routes

Y

Y

Y

•IP unicast and multicast forwarding

Y

Y

Y

•Simple IP access control lists (ACLs) (both Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding path)

Y

Y

Y

•Extended IP ACLs in software (control-plane only)

Y

Y

Y

•IP and IP multicast routing and switching between Ethernet ports

Y

Y

Y

•Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) multicast (not RPF unicast)

Y

Y

Y

•Load balancing among equal cost paths based on source and destination IP addresses

Y

Y

Y

•IRB routing mode support

Y

Y

Y

•IP host functionality

Y

Y

Y

Routing Protocols

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Virtual Private Network (VPN) Routing and Forwarding Lite (VRF Lite)

Y

Y

Y

•Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) Protocol

Y

Y

Y

•Routing Information Protocol (RIP and RIP II)

Y

Y

Y

•Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

Y

Y

Y

•Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Protocol

Y

Y

Y

•Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)—Sparse, sparse-dense, and dense modes

Y

Y

Y

•Secondary addressing

Y

Y

Y

•Static routes

Y

Y

Y

•Local proxy ARP

Y

Y

Y

•Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

Y

Y

Y

•Classless interdomain routing (CIDR)

Y

Y

Y

Quality of Service (QoS)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Multicast priority queuing classes

Y

Y

Y

•Service level agreements (SLAs) with 1-Mbps granularity

Y

Y

Y

•Input policing

Y

Y

Y

•Guaranteed bandwidth (weighted round-robin [WDRR] plus strict priority scheduling)

Y

Y

Y

•Low latency queuing support for unicast Voice-over-IP (VoIP)

Y

Y

Y

•Class of service (CoS) based on Layer 2 priority, VLAN ID, Layer 3 Type of Service/DiffServ Code Point (TOS/DSCP), and port

Y

Y

Y

•CoS-based packet statistics

Y

Y

Y

Metro Ethernet Feature Set: Ethernet Virtual Circuits

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Point-to-Point topology (UNI to UNI)

N

N

N

•Attribute Discovery Frames (ATD) for VLAN mapping

N

N

N

Security Features

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Cisco IOS login enhancements

Y

Y

Y

•Secure Shell connection (SSH Version 2)

Y

Y

Y

•Disabled console port

Y

Y

Y

•Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting/Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (AAA/RADIUS) stand alone mode

Y

Y

Y

•AAA/RADIUS relay mode

Y

Y

Y

Additional Protocols

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) support on Ethernet ports

Y

Y

Y

•Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) relay

N

N

N

•Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) over 10/100 Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, FEC, GEC, and Bridge Group Virtual Interface (BVI)

Y

Y

Y

•Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)

Y

Y

Y

Management Features

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Cisco IOS

Y

Y

Y

•CTC

Y

Y

Y

•CTM

Y

Y

Y

•Remote monitoring (RMON)

Y

Y

Y

•Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Y

Y

Y

•Transaction Language 1 (TL1)

Y

Y

Y

•Simultaneous performance monitoring (PM) counter clearing in Cisco IOS, CTC, and TL1

Y

Y

Y

System Features

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Automatic field programmable gate array (FPGA) Upgrade

Y

Y

Y

•Network Equipment Building Systems 3 (NEBS3) compliant

Y

Y

Y

•Version up to independently upgrade individual cards

Y

Y

Y

CTC Features

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

Y (R 6.0 and above)

•Framing Mode Provisioning

Y

Y

Y

•Standard STS/STM and VCAT circuit provisioning for POS virtual ports

Y

Y

Y

•SONET/SDH alarm reporting for path alarms and other ML-Series card specific alarms

Y

Y

Y

•Raw port statistics

Y

Y

Y

•Standard inventory and card management functions

Y

Y

Y

•J1 path trace

Y

Y

Y

•Cisco IOS CLI Telnet sessions from CTC

Y

Y

Y

•Cisco IOS startup configuration file management from CTC

Y

Y

Y