Multiservice Switch (MSS) is originally a

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec, ...

line of routers, historically called Passport, designed for carrier core and edge routing. They run the

Passport Carrier Release Passport Carrier Release (PCR) is a version of the Passport Switch (now Multiservice Switch) software designed to run in telecommunications carrier environments. It was formerly developed by Nortel. After the sale in 2009 of most Nortel's assets, th ...

operating system. The MSS has a significant installed base, with over 40,000 switches sold. As of 27 September 2010, this product line was sold to

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

. The Nortel MSS products have been rebranded to Ericsson PPX.

Features

Some core features of the Multiservice Switch series are: *

MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identif ...

with

BGP Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous system (Internet), autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector ...

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

s * RFC2764

s *

SONET Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diode ...

/ ATM,

Frame Relay Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Se ...

and

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

Media Support *

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...

Routing (layer 3) * Layer 3

Traffic Management Traffic management is a key branch within logistics. It concerns the planning control and purchasing of transport services needed to physically move vehicles (for example aircraft, road vehicles, rolling stock and watercraft) and freight. Traffic ...

Architecture

The Multiservice switches are made up of a shelf of 16 cards. There are two key types of cards to consider: * the Control Processor or CP is the switch fabric processor: it controls shelf functionality, as well as controls routing as well as manages the provisioning interface; * the Function Processor or FP is in essence a line card, but there is processing logic and queue logic on the card. This allows for packets to be directly manipulated on the FP, decreasing the load on the CP. FPs normally process data frames on the ingress path and can autonomously forward frames to egress ports without further processing by protocol or control software on the egress FP. This is done by implementing backplane transfer, egress queuing and subsequent transmission all using ASICs. A shelf can have up to 2 CPs (1 master, 1 hot spare) and 14 FPs (including hot spares). The MSS has historically gone through two generations of Fabric Control Processors, starting with the

i960 Intel's i960 (or 80960) was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded microcontroller. It became a best-selling CPU in that segment, along with the competing AMD 29000. In spite of its success, ...

initially, and later moving to

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

. MSS software development started in 1990 before MSS hardware was available by applying

paravirtualization In computing, paravirtualization or para-virtualization is a virtualization technique that presents a software interface to the virtual machines which is similar, yet not identical, to the underlying hardware–software interface. The intent o ...

techniques to

VxWorks VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, determin ...

and running each CP or FP application payload on

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

workstations, each as a

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

user process.

Models

The Multiservice Switch line is divided into several different models. This division is both historical and technical.

MSS 15000/20000

The top-of-the-line switch with a backplane capable of in excess of 50 Gbit/s of data transfer. This is the latest revision to the MSS line.

MSS 6400

One of the original Passport switches, the MSS 6400 has a significant historical installed base. Based on a redundant dual 800 Mbit/s backplane. The MSS 6400 had several different configurations available, the three slot 6420, the five slot 6440, and the 16 slot 6480.

MSS 7400

Initially running on the same hardware as the MSS 6400, the MSS 7400 uses Passport Carrier Release software only. The MSS 7400 range includes the three-slot 7420 (discontinued), the five-slot 7440, eight-slot 7460, and 16-slot 7480.

MSS 9400

The 16-slot MSS 9480 moves away from the dual shared 800Mbit/s backplanes found in the 6400/7400 series of products. The 9480 backplane is switched, providing a dedicated dual bus to each line card. Most current 7400 line cards work in the 9480 chassis.

Supported media types

There are a number of media types supported by the Multiservice Switch, both modern and historical. For example,

offers line cards that provide

Packet over SONET Packet over SONET/SDH, abbreviated POS, is a communications protocol for transmitting packets in the form of the Point to Point Protocol (PPP) over SDH or SONET, which are both standard protocols for communicating digital information using lase ...

and ATM at OC3 through OC192 speeds (depending on the fabric capacity). As well, Frame Relay and other historical TDM interfaces can be purchased. More recently,

has become a focus for these switches, and

10/100/1000 Ethernet over twisted-pair technologies use twisted-pair cables for the physical layer of an Ethernet computer network. They are a subset of all Ethernet physical layers. Early Ethernet used various grades of coaxial cable, but in 1984, StarL ...

media types have been supported (again depending on the fabric capacity).

Other uses

The MSS chassis and architecture is an integral part of Nortel's

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

and

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a su ...

's (through acquisition)

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

solutions. These switches run enhanced versions of Nortel's

software, but effectively are Multiservice Switches.

References

External links

Multiservice Switch 6400

Multiservice Switch 7400

Multiservice Switch 15000/20000
{{NortelSystems Networking hardware Nortel products Hardware routers