A Guide to Redundancy With RDL-3000 Systems

This document is intended to provide a quick overview of the different ways in which the RDL-3000
system can be deployed redundantly. It outlines the officially supported configurations, and the
hardware, software, and licensing requirements of each. A detailed analysis of the performance, pros,
and cons of each solution is beyond the scope of this document. For more technical detail, whitepapers
have been created as needed.

1.1 Sector Hardware Redundancy (1+1)

Eth Switch
Eth Heartbeat Eth

Core Network
Primary Backup
SC SC

SS

Remote Site

What this solution is:

 A solution to provide warm standby hardware in order to prevent the necessity of a truck roll in
the event of SC hardware failure.

What this solution is not:

 Hitless link redundancy.
 Automatic sector load balancing.

What you need to deploy it:

 A second (backup) sector controller with identical configuration (including provisioning!) to the
primary.
 Additional “SC Protect” licensing for both sector controllers (Active and Backup).

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Additional considerations:
 The backup sector uses a regular heartbeat protocol sent across the core-side network
connection in order to detect the presence of the active sector. If the sectors lose connectivity
(e.g. core switch goes offline) then the backup can erroneously become active.
 In order to minimize link downtime, subscribers won’t move back to the originally-active sector
automatically once it’s recovered. If desired, this must be done manually.

1.2 PTP Parallel Link Redundancy (2+0 w/ PRP)

Eth PRP Switch

A B
Core Network
SC1 SC2

SS1 SS2

A B
Eth PRP Switch

Remote Site

What this solution is:

 A solution to provide hitless redundancy across two separate but parallel RDL-3000 links.

What this solution isn’t:

 Link aggregation.
 Load balancing.
 “Warm” or “Hot” standby failover.

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What you need to deploy it:
 1 PRP-capable switch at each end of the link (often in addition to whatever BS switch is already
present)
 Currently only two switches are tested and supported for PRP deployment: The Cisco IE2000U
and the Hirschman RSPS25. Both models are available in our project price list.
 No additional licensing requirements beyond standard PTP licensing for each link.
 RDL-3000 software v3.0+

Additional considerations:
 Make sure Rapid Path is enabled on both radios!
 Strongly recommend band separation, especially for areas prone to strong ducting.
o In general need some sort of separation (channel, polarization, etc.)
o If you cannot provide band separation (e.g. you’re stuck in 5GHz band) then you must
provide at least 1.5x channel width between parallel links.
 This solution is completely hitless.
 Introduces 2x increase in required spectrum since all traffic is duplicated across both links.
 No negative impact to latency or throughput.
o In general, throughput will be equal to the capacity of the faster link.
 Introduces additional 4 bytes of payload to Ethernet frame. Could cause packets to exceed
network max frame size in rare situations. Just be aware.

1.3 PMP Parallel Link Redundancy (2+0 w/ PRP)

Eth PRP Switch

A B
Core Network
SC1 SC2

SS1 SS2 SS1 SS2

A B A B
Eth PRP Switch PRP Switch Eth

Remote Site Remote Site

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What this solution is:
 A solution to provide hitless redundancy to multiple remote sites across two separate but
parallel RDL-3000 sectors.

What this solution isn’t:

 Link aggregation.
 Load balancing.
 “Warm” or “Hot” standby failover.

What you need to deploy it:

 1 PRP-capable switch at the sector-side and one at each remote site.
o Depending on network design, the sector-side switch is often in addition to whatever BS
switch is already present. Typically, the PRP switch at the remote sites can fulfill all of
the local switching needs.
 Currently only two switches are tested and supported for PRP deployment: The Cisco IE2000U
and the Hirschman RSPS25. Both models are available in our project price list.
 No additional licensing requirements beyond standard SC/SS licensing for each radio.
 RDL-3000 software v3.0+

Additional considerations:
 Make sure Rapid Path is enabled on all radios!
 Strongly recommend band separation, especially for areas prone to strong ducting.
o In general need some sort of separation (channel, polarization, etc.)
o If you cannot provide band separation (e.g. you’re stuck in 5GHz band) then you must
provide at least 1.5x channel width between parallel links.
 This solution is completely hitless.
 Introduces 2x increase in required spectrum since all traffic is duplicated across both sectors.
 No negative impact to latency or throughput.
o In general, throughput will be equal to the capacity of the faster link.
 Introduces additional 4 bytes of payload to Ethernet frame. Could cause packets to exceed
network max frame size in rare situations. Just be aware.

4 Confidential and Proprietary

© 2014. Redline Communications Inc.