Deploying Tropos Mesh with Tier 1

network using VPLS Layer 2 Circuit

VPLS Technical Overview

VPLS is an Ethernet-based point-to-multipoint Layer 2 VPN. This technology allows you to connect
geographically dispersed LANs to each other across an MPLS backbone while maintaining Layer 2
connectivity. VPLS delivers an Ethernet service that can span one or more metro areas, providing
connectivity between multiple sites as though these sites were attached to the same Ethernet LAN. VPLS
uses the IP/MPLS core infrastructure to bridge between Ethernet networks and provide Ethernet-based
services.

. Figure 1 Logical View of a VPLS

In the diagram above, each CE device requires a single connection to the network to get full L2
connectivity to the remaining sites. For the National Grid Tropos mesh deployment, the Tropos
Gateways will be similar to the CE devices shown above.
PWRP
It is important to note that Tropos is a Layer 3 routed network. Tropos employs a scalable and efficient
wireless routing protocol (PWRP) that is designed to maintain very low routing overheads within a Layer
3 network architecture to efficiently contain traffic. The mesh network self-organizes into clusters
around backhaul points and this approach allows the overall network to scale to arbitrary sizes. Cluster
sizes can keep growing and more capacity can be injected through the addition of backhaul points.

Tropos routers support standards-based mechanisms for strong AAA, including both Layer 2 as well as
Layer 3 mechanisms. In particular, Tropos routers comply with IEEE 802.11i, 802.1x, etc. but also have
the capability to do granular packet filtering, traffic segmentation, secure peer-to-peer enablement,
Diffserv and other Layer 3 QoS and security mechanisms.

Why VPLS is used for Tropos Networks

The primary purpose of VPLS is to extend Layer 2 broadcast domains across multiple locations using an
MPLS backbone.

A VLAN represents a single Layer 2 broadcast domain. A virtual local area network (VLAN) is a logical
grouping of devices that enables them to function as if they are on the same sub-network, regardless of
their physical location. The Tropos Wireless network supports multiple VLANs and thus provides the
ability to segregate network traffic for different user groups and applications.

In addition to assigning VLANs for client traffic, it is important to reserve a separate VLAN ID on the
Tropos Gateways for management and control traffic. Critical Network Management traffic is shared
between Tropos Gateways on this Management VLAN. The communication between Gateways is
simplified if all Gateways are on the same Layer 2 Domain.

For the National Grid project, we anticipate the following VLANs with a unique IP Subnet allocated for
each VLAN. (vlan id’s and subnets are for example only)

VLAN ID Application IP Subnet

100 Management 10.10.100.0/24
101 Voice 10.10.101.0/24
102 CCTV 10.10.102.0/24
103 DMS 10.10.103.0/24
104 SCADA 10.10.104.0/24
105 AMI 10.10.105.0/24
When using VPLS, the entire Tier 1 network emulates a Virtual VLAN Switch. The same VLANs (Layer 2
Domains) can be extended across all locations e.g. a CCTV camera connected to VLAN 102 on a Mesh
Router at Al Khobar can reside on the same VLAN and IP Subnet as a CCTV Controller on VLAN 102 in the
SEC Office.

When multiple Gateways are deployed throughout the National Grid Service Territory, Tropos Nodes
will have the ability to roam between Gateways based on internal PWRP algorithms to select the best RF
path to optimize throughput and latency through the mesh. The Tropos mesh also supports the ability
for Mobile Clients to roam seamlessly throughout the network. The most efficient way for the Tropos
Mesh to support this seamless roaming is to have the Tropos Gateways reside on the same Layer 2
Domain.

The Tropos Gateways will share internal routing tables and roaming database with all other Tropos
Gateways on the network. These updates are sent using a Tropos Broadcast mechanism. Also, the
Tropos Gateways use Gratuitous ARP updates to inform the upstream devices about Tropos Nodes and
client devices in its cluster. If Gateways reside on different subnets, the broadcast mechanisms used to
share roaming information are broken. The management and overhead involved in supporting seamless
roaming and redundancy between Gateways becomes much more complicated. So, when building large
scale networks, the preferred approach is to provide a Layer 2 Domain using VPLS. This is the most
graceful way of scaling a Tropos Mesh network

Without VPLS, a broadcast domain is limited to a single data center location and all traffic beyond this
domain is routed at Layer 3. Without VPLS, the Tropos Mesh Routers connected to the 3 main sites (SEC
Office, Khaldoun and Al Khobar ) would all have Management VLAN IP Addresses on different Layer 3
Subnets. As mentioned previously, this will block some critical communication between the Tropos
Gateways. That non-VPLS topology would necessitate a complex cross subnet roaming process to be
enabled to support complete management traffic between the mesh Gateways on different Layer 2
domains. This cross subnet roaming solution introduces more latency into the network and also limits
the scalability of the network.

A VPLS based solution on the existing Juniper J2 350 Routers is extremely scalable and easy to deploy.
Because VPLS uses MPLS as its core, it provides low latency variation and statistically bound low
convergence times within the MPLS network. It also supports QoS using the traffic engineering
capabilities of the MPLS network

Tropos Applications that require Layer 2 connectivity between Mesh Gateways are indicated below:

• High availability and Dynamic mesh clusters:

Availability (measured by system and service uptime during normal operating conditions) and
survivability (which measures the resilience of the system to recover from exceptional events and
conditions) are particularly important and also difficult to achieve in the wireless setting, where RF
conditions are highly dynamic, spectrum is unlicensed and devices are mobile.

A segmented network consisting of multiple L3 Subnets is more exposed to isolated failures e.g. if all
Gateways in one subnet are offline, then all Nodes with a Management IP address in that subnet will be
offline. A VPLS backbone network allows the Tropos Mesh to achieve the highest levels of availability
and redundancy. VPLS ensures that isolated failures can be easily overcome by the Mesh algorithms. If
some Gateways are offline, all Nodes will seamlessly migrate to Gateways within the same Layer 2
Domain

Based on PWRP (Tropos Mesh Protocol), Tropos Nodes can seamlessly move from one Gateway to
another without any disruption in traffic. Nodes may change cluster to avoid interference and find an
optimal path to optimize performance. Without VPLS, Nodes moving from one Gateway to another on
different subnets will experience increased latency as traffic is tunneled from one subnet to
another. Every Node on the mesh will have a ‘home subnet’. All traffic must be routed from the Nodes
home subnet. This introduces inefficient routing of traffic through the mesh. Using VPLS, all Tropos
Nodes and Gateways are in the same Layer 2 domain so seamless roaming is support without any
noticeable convergence time.
• Wireless Client Roaming (Mobile IP): A wireless client can associate to any mesh router in the
network and roam across the entire service territory without changing IP Address. Without VPLS, latency
is increased for wireless users as their application traffic needs to be tunneled back to their ‘home
subnet’ before being routed to the backbone network. Alternatively, BGP Routing can be implemented
to update core network routing as clients move around the network. With VPLS in place, no tunneling is
required on the Tropos mesh, and no complex IP routing protocol is needed to update core routing
information for those clients.

Please refer to the following Juniper documents

“Implementing VPLS For Data Center Interconnectivity”

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/local/pdf/implementation-guides/8010050-en.pdf

Junos® OS VPLS Configuration Guide

http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/en_US/junos12.2/information-products/pathway-pages/config-
guide-vpns/config-guide-vpns-vpls.pdf