MPLS and GMPLS Interoperability Test Event, to be showcased in Kobe, Japan

[<ananda_sengupta@agilent.com>]

Invitation to participate at the first Asian MPLS Interoperability event to be showcased at ICBN 2004 (International Conference on Communication and Broadband Networking), Kobe, Japan, April 7-9, 2004

Hello everyone,

The MPLS & FR Alliance Interoperability Committee for the first time will hold a public interoperability event in Asia. This will be showcased at the upcoming conference ICBN 2004 co-sponsored by the ATM Forum and MPLS & FR Alliance.  You are invited to participate in the public interoperability event.

The event will bring important benefits to the participating companies:
- The private test event leading to the showcase will improve the device's interoperability
- The public showcase will demonstrate the tests and results to the conference visitors and confirm that the devices are addressing interoperability issues
- There will be extensive interaction with the press about the event

Visitors to the ICBN 2004 conference will represent the technical community in Asia.

The topics to be covered at this event include MPLS Quality of Service and resiliency of routers using MPLS, as well topics in GMPLS. 

Showcase Details:

The interoperability event is organized by the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance. A network with MPLS/GMPLS routers from different vendors, complemented by emulators, will be used to perform the test scenarios and validate the test methodologies. 

To ensure that the showcase is successful, a hot-stage event will be held in March, a few weeks prior to the ICBN 2004 event. This test event will take place in two parts over two weeks, focusing on MPLS and GMPLS separately in each week. 

The hot-stage events for MPLS as well as GMPLS will be held at Isocore's testing facility in Virginia, U.S. (http://www.isocore.com/)

Test Areas:

The test plans will be based on work by the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance interoperability committee. These tests will be built upon the experiences of previous interoperability test events and go into new testing areas. The topics will be finalized after discussing with the potential test event participants.

The tests may cover the following topics:

o	Graceful Restart for OSPF, IS-IS, LDP, and BGP
o	DiffServ and MPLS TE covering both RFC 2702 and RFC 3270
o	Fast Reroute
o	Layer 2 and Layer 3 MPLS VPNs

Next Steps:

The first conference call has been held. For details on the next conference call, please contact Alexa Morris of the MPLS & FR Alliance (details below).

Detailed test plans will be discussed on conference calls between the interested parties. All interested parties will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to participate as confidential information may be exchanged on subsequent calls.

For registration and enquiries, please contact:

Alexa Morris
Executive Director, MPLS & FR Alliance
Phone: +1-510-608-5914/5910
amorris@mplsforum.org

Thanks for your attention and look forward to meeting you on the conference calls.

Regards,

Ananda Sen Gupta
Chair, Interoperability Committee
MPLS and Frame Relay Alliance
ananda_sengupta@agilent.com