Huawei Completes SRv6 Interoperability Tests at EANTC

[Paris, France, April 10, 2019] At MPLS+SDN+NFV World Congress 2019, Huawei participated in multi-vendor interoperability tests conducted by the European Advanced Network Test Center (EANTC), which has recently released its 2019 Interoperability Test White Paper. The interoperability tests brought together 20 vendors, and focused on Segment Routing (SR), Ethernet VPN (EVPN), software defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), clock, and microwave. Several vendors were also involved in the SRv6 interoperability tests, including device vendors and instrument vendors.

SRv6, which is a next-generation core protocol based on native IPv6 and source routing, is a successor to MPLS on IP transport networks. It replaces and simplifies complex protocols running on existing networks, improves network configuration efficiency, and helps provide application-level management and services. In addition, SRv6 enables the network controller to implement path programmability, providing differentiated SLA assurance for a wide range of services and applications. Only the transport networks that are fully SRv6-ready will be able to meet service transport requirements in the 5G and cloud era.

The outcomes of the SRv6 Interoperability tests include:

• As legacy networks must support rapid provisioning of SRv6 services in overlay mode to ensure smooth evolution, Huawei has successfully tested interoperability of the IPv6 data plane forwarding, VPNv4 over SRv6, and 4PE/4VPE with Segment Routing. The test results show that basic IPv4 and IPv6 services are properly transmitted along SRv6 tunnels, while performance remains stable.
• The 5G era offers many benefits to vertical industries. However, new business sectors, such as smart manufacturing, telemedicine, and autonomous driving, pose higher requirements on network reliability and availability, requiring faster switchover than the 50ms switching offered by conventional protection mechanisms. In SRv6 Topology-Independent Loop-free Alternate FRR (TI-LFA) tests, traffic switchovers triggered by a Huawei device result in less than 1 ms packet loss time, and no packet loss during traffic switchback. The test results show that SRv6 TI-LFA meets the requirements of new services such as Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) and Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications (URLLC).
• Huawei successfully participated in interoperability tests on O&M capabilities such as SRv6 ping and trace functions.
• Huawei successfully completed tests on EVPN over SRv6, VPNv6 over SRv6, and SRv6 dynamic SIDs.

- EVPN over SRv6 is a future-proof simplified protocol.

- VPNv6 over SRv6 enables IPv6-capable devices to provide stronger, more flexible access and transport services.

The test results confirm the interoperability of Huawei’s SRv6 implementation in typical SRv6 usage scenarios and lay the foundation for subsequent commercial use of SRv6. The protocol maturity and growing industry chain will provide further impetus for the SRv6 industry.

Carsten Rossenhoevel, Managing Director, EANTC, said, "SRv6 is an elegant protocol having the potential to simplify next-generation transport networks configuration and management. We are proud that the 2019 EANTC test event has helped to improve interoperability of Huawei and other vendors’ SRv6 implementations – regarding diverse functionality and failover procedures. The results confirm that the technology keeps its promises, and that participating SRv6 implementations are ready for evaluation in service provider environments."