Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Topics

DC-OSPF is a portable source code implementation of the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protcol designed explicitly to support the scalability, availability and functional requirements of OEMs building devices for next generation networks.

DC-ISIS shares Metaswitch's unicast IP routing architecture. It is available for both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.

DC-OSPF has comprehensive support for the relevant standards, with management interfaces and a design suited for the most demanding applications.

The DC-OSPF architecture splits the product into modular components. This allows these components to be distributed onto line cards and supports multiple instances as required for virtual routers and VPNs.

DC-OSPF Features

OSPF Protocol Function

The DC-OSPF software product includes the following OSPF protocol function.

  • Full mandatory OSPF protocol support for both OSPFv2 (RFC 2328) and OSPFv3 (RFC 2740)
    • Broadcast, Point-to-point, Point-to-multipoint, Unnumbered and NBMA links supported
    • Multiple areas and virtual links
    • Equal cost multipath
    • Authentication (including simple password and MD5 cryptography) for OSPFv2
  • VPNs
    • Support for Virtual Routers using multi instance DC-Routing Table Manager
    • Support for Virtual Routing Forwarding tables using multi-instance DC-Routing Table Manager
    • Support for OSPF as a PE-CE protocol, including sham links (RFC 4576 and RFC 4577)
    • Integration with DC-BGP or third party implementation
  • Traffic Engineering support
    • Calculation of Constrained Shortest Path First routes
    • Caching of CSPF routes
    • IPv6 traffic engineering for both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3
  • Optical support
    • Routing for separate data and signaling networks
    • Integrated with DC-MPLS and DC-LMP
    • DDRP as used in OIF NNI
  • Optional enhancements to the protocol, including
    • Stub Area support and NSSA support (as specified in RFC 3101)
    • Incremental Dijkstra algorithm
    • Dijkstra SPF calculations can be split over multiple schedules
    • Support for Opaque LSAs
    • Multi-instance OSPF (RFC 6549)
    • Multi-area interfaces (RFC 5185)

Management and Integration

  • Pre-integrated and transactional CLI, NETCONF, WEB UI, SNMP, REST, and scripted management solutions available through pre-integration and partnership with Tail-f ConfD
  • High-level Yang models map directly to operator-familiar semantics
  • Easily integrated with proprietary management solutions via alternative low-level MIB interfaces
    • Support for all BGP v4 MIB tables defined in RFC 1657
    • Extensions based on the latest BGP v4 MIB draft (draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-mibv2)
    • Proprietary extensions to allow MIB-based configuration of BGP routing policies
  • High availability and fault tolerance in management of configuration information (when used with Configuration Safe Store)

Carrier Class Design

  • Routing Table Manager
    • Provides centralized routing table for all IP routing protocols, including OSPF, BGP, ISIS
    • DC-OSPF can be used with DC-Routing Table Manager or third party implementations
  • Disjoint CSPF source route calculations for protection switching and fast restoration
    • Fully (node) disjoint routes
    • Link disjoint routes
    • Link or node protection
  • Distribution
    • Multi-instance Routing Table Manager, CSPF calculator and OSPF Neighbor Manager components can all be distributed onto line cards
    • Use of Metaswitch's N-BASE environment allows distribution of components without changes to protocol code
    • Reduces load on the central processor
    • Reduces traffic on the backplane
    • Prevents expensive SPF calculations from holding up time-critical Hello processing
    • Prioritizes Hello PDUs over other PDUs
  • Redundancy and high availability
    • Integrated with Metaswitch's high availability framework (HAF)
    • Uninterrupted packet forwarding across hardware or software failure
    • Uninterrupted CSPF calculations across hardware or software failure
    • Availability and fault tolerance in management of configuration information possible with Configuration Safe Store