PBB/PBT-equivalent

[lunarman_98]

hi, are there any Cisco products equivalent to Nortel's PBB/PBT technology?

to me, it seems like it's just L2VPN, but not through MPLS cloud.

what's the difference between the two, then?

[attrgautam]

Dont think so cisco has any equivalent on the ONS platforms yet.

I think the diff comes in the fact that PBB/PBT uses ethernet as the transport mechanism unlike MPLS which uses IP over SONET/SDH/Eth etc to transport Ethernet. PBT gives the determinism (TE), QoS etc needed on a Layer 2 network with SONET like protection (50ms convergence) etc. Using PBB/MAC-in-MAC, it can keep service provider backbone scalable and secure by not receiving broadcasts from customers and reducing CAM tables.