From Layer 2 metro designs to more sophisticated MPLS-based designs or Provider Bridge/Provider Backbone Bridge-based designs, OPTISIS and BROCADE offers robust, highly scalable solutions for cost-effective, high-performance metropolitan networks. The combination of OPTISIS knowledge, experience and highly skilled support team and BROCADE price-performance leadership and investment protection in the face of increased bandwidth requirements provides unparalleled value to service providers, enabling the delivery of highly scalable Carrier Ethernet services.

OPTISIS-BROCADE metro solutions offers flexibility to the service provider in designing a network based on technology that suits the business goals of a provider.

For simple, cost efficient layer 2 metro designs, high performance layer 2 switching capabilities built into all BROCADE products enable the creation of high capacity infrastructures with end-to-end wire-speed performance and QoS. This is complemented by a unique feature set of advanced layer 2 protocols for fast, sub-second convergence: IEEE 802.1w, Metro Ring Protocol (MRP), Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol (VSRP). In addition, BROCADE switches are unique in their ability to enforce L2 and L3 Access Control Lists (ACLs) in a switched environment allowing metro providers to enforce policies that were traditionally achievable only using layer 3 solutions.

Typical candidates for the creation of such layer 2 metros are the FastIron Edge Switch (FES), FastIron Edge X-Series (FESX), NetIron CES 2000 Series and the BigIron RX-4. In addition, such a solution can always be augmented through the deployment of the NetIron MLX Series products to add high touch features like strong policy enforcement via inbound and outbound ACLs, advanced accounting, and scalable traffic policing.

The BROCADE NetIron CES 2000 Series allows advanced Layer 2 technologies such as IEEE 802.1ah Provider Backbone Bridges (PBB) or IEEE 802.1ad Provider Bridges (PB) to be used to extend Carrier Ethernet services to the edge of a network.

For metro providers aiming for higher scalability services, or looking forward to deploying inter-metro services, BROCADE MPLS capable products provide ideal platforms for deploying high scalability and cost efficient services. Playing a central role in such scenarios are the NetIron MLX-4/-8/-16/-32 Series routers for high capacity metro services at the edge/aggregation layers, and the NetIron XMR 4000/8000/16000/32000 routers for high scalability core and inter-metro connectivity. The NetIron XMR and NetIron MLX Series routers are certified for MEF compliance, allowing service providers to use BROCADE infrastructure for offering services that are compliant with the emerging MEF specifications. These MPLS-based services may also be combined with PBB on the NetIron CES 2000 switches at the edge of the network to offer highly scalable Carrier Ethernet services.