CHAPTER
26-1
Ethernet Card Software Feature and Configuration Guide, R7.2
January 2009
26
Configuring IEEE 802.17b Resilient Packet Ring
Note The terms "Unidirectional Path Switched Ring" and "UPSR" may appear in Cisco literatur e. These terms
do not refer to using Cisco ONS 15xxx products in a unidirectional path switched ring configuration.
Rather, these terms, as well as "Path Protected Mesh Network" and "PPMN," refer generally to Cisco's
path protection feature, which may be used in any topological n etwork configuration. Cisco does not
recommend using its path protection feature in any parti cular topological network configuration.
This chapter describes the IEEE 802.17b-based resilient packet ring (RPR-IEEE) and how to configure
it on the ML-Series card.
This chapter contains the following major sections:
Understanding RPR-IEEE, page 26-1
Configuring RPR-IEEE Characteristics, page 26-6
Configuring RPR-IEEE Protection, page 26-8
Configuring QoS on RPR-IEEE, page 26-17
Configuration Example for RPR-IEEE QoS, page 26-21
Verifying and Monitoring RPR-IEEE, page 26-22
Configuring RPR-IEEE End-to-End, page 26-30
Verifying RPR-IEEE End-to-End Ethernet Connectivity, page 26-37
Understanding Redundant Interconnect, page 26-37

Understanding RPR-IEEE

RPR, as described in IEEE 802.17, is a metropolitan area network (MAN) technology supporting data
transfer among stations interconnected in a dual-ring configuration. The IEEE 802.17b spatial ly aware
sublayer amendment is not yet ratified but is expected to add support for bridging to IEEE 802.17. Since
the amendment is not yet ratified, no equipment is currently IEEE 802.17b compliant. The ML-Series
card’s RPR-IEEE is based on the expected IEEE 802.17b based standard.
The ML-Series card supports RPR-IEEE. RPR-IEEE is well suited for transporting Ethernet over a
SONET/SDH ring topology and enables multiple ML-Series cards to becom e one functional network
segment. When used in this role, RPR-IEEE overcomes the limitations of earlier schemes, such as
IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), IEEE 802.1W Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP), and
SONET/SDH.