Recently, China Mobile and major chip and equipment manufacturers successfully completed the SRv6 header compression optimization solution forwarding plane multi-vendor interoperability test, marking the successful completion of the first phase test of the SRv6 optimization solution. Spirent Communications, as a test equipment manufacturer, cooperates with China Mobile Completed the interoperability test with major manufacturers.
Segment Routing (SR: Segment Routing) is a source routing technology, based on the SDN concept, constitutes a path-oriented network architecture, supports the multi-level programmable requirements of the future network, and can meet the 5G ultra-large connection and slicing application scenarios Connection requirements. SRv6 is an SR solution based on IPv6 extension. The 128-bit Segment ID (SID for short) of the standard SRv6 adopts the SID in the IPv6 address format. Compared with the SID in the MPLS Label format, the SRv6 SID has routable properties, which simplifies the creation of inter-domain paths and realizes the ability to quickly establish end-to-end paths in IPv6 networks. At the same time, SRv6 SID supports programmability. SRv6 combines the collaborative support of centralized and distributed control planes to flexibly meet the needs of various services and network functions, and adapt to the needs of network and service development.
Although the standard SRv6 has many advantages, it also has obvious disadvantages. The actual deployment of SRv6 technology in the network faces challenges: First, SRv6 message overhead is high and network link bandwidth utilization is low. In the case of 256byte packet length and 8-layer SID, the bandwidth utilization is only about 60%. In addition, SRv6 message processing has high requirements on the chip, and it is difficult for existing network equipment to support in-depth SRH header replication and operation, and the processing efficiency of the chip will be reduced.
In order to solve the problem of high overhead of SRv6, China Mobile has conducted in-depth research on the improvement of SRv6 technology in conjunction with multiple device and chip manufacturers, proposed a G-SRv6 header compression scheme, and submitted a technical draft to the IETF. This time, China Mobile's well-known equipment manufacturers and chip manufacturers in the United Nations fully verified G-SRv6. As a well-known data communication test manufacturer, Spirent Communications provided the Spirent TestCenter product as a test tool for this interoperability test to test and verify G-SRv6 related technologies. The data plane Spirent TestCenter has a wealth of traffic templates and powerful traffic editing capabilities. In the test, SRv6 compressed and uncompressed headers can be flexibly edited, and multiple combinations can be used. In terms of traffic analysis, it can analyze SRv6 packets and verify forwarding. The G-SRH message in the network supports the G-SRH standard during the network forwarding process. Spirent TestCenter supports multiple draft standards of SRv6, and constantly updates the support for new standards according to the needs of operators and manufacturers.
Through this interoperability verification and test, the advantages of China Mobile's G-SRv6 optimization solution have been verified. G-SRv6 already has the ability to forward and interoperate with different vendors, and at the same time verified the data plane expansion of Spirent TestCenter in SRv6 and G-SRH Ability to provide better support for the future to better serve operators, chip and equipment manufacturers in the verification and testing of data communications.