ZebOS™

Advanced Routing Suite

Intelligent Network Software for Enhanced IP Services
IP Infusion's ZebOS ™ Advanced Routing Suite (ARS) is one of the most widely used Internet
Protocol (IP) routing, multicast, and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) software suites
available on the market. ARS has a unique modular, scalable architecture that allows OEM
customers to quickly integrate IP routing, multicast, and MPLS switching protocols into their
platforms. In addition, ARS is the first routing and switching package that supports IPv4,
IPv6, and MPLS protocols. ARS contains a number of features that enable device and system
developers to quickly bring IP routing software to market, these include:

• Scalable, Modular, Platform-independent Architecture

• RIP, OSPF, & BGP Routing (IPv4, IPv6)
• MPLS-LDP & MPLS-VPN Switching
• Traffic Engineering: RSVP-TE, CR-LDP, and CSPF
• Virtual Routing for Provider Edge Solutions (BGP & OSPF)
• Routing Redundancy Manager for High Availability
• Multicast Support for PIM-SM
• Mobile IP Home Agent Discovery
• Industry Standard Command Line Interface and Management
• Network Processor Integration

Figure 1 ZebOS Architecture Diagram

In development since 1996, ZebOS ARS is currently
in use at thousands of sites worldwide and is one of
the most popular routing protocol packages on the
market. Extensively tested both at customer sites and
at interoperability labs, the ZebOS ARS is a robust,
high-performance software package that meets the
demands of today's networks, including carrier-class
environments. In order to verify that developers and
integrators have all the tools at their disposal to quickly
integrate ZebOS ARS into their platforms, it is
packaged with user and developer documentation
as well as technical support.
ZebOS ARS delivers solutions that core routing and
switching vendors, appliance vendors, as well as
network processor and ASIC developers require for
quick time to market. This software solution is ideal
for provider edge and wide area network (WAN)
aggregation devices, with its integrated MPLS and IP
routing solutions. Consequently, ZebOS ARS assists
platform developers in rapidly bringing IP routing,
multicast, and MPLS software to market without the
cost and time associated with developing and testing
routing protocols.
ZebOS Architecture
ZebOS ARS utilizes a new scalable, modular,
platform-independent architecture for routing and
switching software. As shown in Figure 1, ZebOS
protocol are built on the ZebOS Network Services
Module (NSM), which manages both the route table
and each of the enabled protocols, and performs
route conversion and redistribution. ZebOS is built
with a flexible architecture that allows developers to
easily expand, adapt, or configure it according to their
specific routing protocol needs. Additionally, a well-
defined API is available for the ZebOS NSM to interface
with the operating system or forwarding plane for
routing table updates. Modules are currently available
on a number of operating systems. With its well-defined
API's and modular design, ZebOS ARS can easily be
ported onto custom and real-time operating systems
(RTOS) as well as network processor environments.
Since the ZebOS ARS supports IPv4, IPv6 and MPLS,
it is well positioned not only to support core, edge,
and access routing and switching platforms, but also
to act as the standard routing protocol for an entire
range of future IPv6 enabled devices that include Small
Office Home Office (SOHO) gateways; wireless,
access, and security devices; and devices that support
Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Voice-over-Internet
Protocol (VoIP) technology, and also require Quality
of Service (QoS) and bandwidth management.
2
Routing Protocol Support
ZebOS ARS provides IETF-compliant IPv4 and IPv6
versions of OSPF, BGP, and RIP as well as MPLS
switching protocols. The RIP IPv4 Protocol Module
supports both RIPv1 and RIPv2. A RIPng Protocol
Module is also available for IPv6 platforms. In addition,
OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 Protocol Modules are offered
for IPv4 and IPv6 support, respectively. Traffic
engineering (TE) extensions, a Constrained Shortest
Path First (CSPF) topology, and virtual routing are
available for the OSPF Protocol Modules. ZebOS BGP-4+
supports both IPv4 and IPv6 in a single module.
MPLS switching modules supported are Resource
Reservation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE);
Constraint based Routing-Label Distribution Protocol
(CR-LDP); and MPLS-LDP. Individual spec sheets are
available for each protocol module and contain
details on supported RFCs, platforms, requirements
and features.
MPLS Support
With its MPLS offering, ZebOS ARS supports the LDP,
RSVP-TE, CR-LDP, and MPLS forwarders to allow IP
packets to be switched over an MPLS core network.
LDP support for RFC3031, RFC3032, RFC3036, and a
number of draft RFCs are provided. The LDP Protocol
Module runs on top of the ZebOS NSM and uses
ZebOS ARS services to obtain routing information.
RSVP-TE and CR-LDP MPLS signaling protocol support
is also provided in the ARS. The MPLS Forwarder
Module has support for Ethernet and PPP. A number of
MPLS spec sheets are available that contains more
details on features, platforms, and requirements.
MPLS-VPN Solutions
Through our MPLS-LDP Forwarder Module, ZebOS
ARS provides a full Layer 3 MPLS-VPN solution by
tightly integrating BGP-VPN extensions. This MPLS-VPN
solution provides address space and routing separation
through the use of per VPN routing tables (VRF) and
MPLS switching in the core. This provides the security
needed by VPN service providers, while at the same
time building a scalable infrastructure that can take
advantage of IP routing, traffic engineering (TE), and
MPLS switching features. Providing VPN services can
add significant value to provider edge equipment.
Traffic Engineering Support for MPLS
ZebOS ARS's traffic engineering support for MPLS
provides RSVP-TE and CR-LDP dynamic signaling
protocols. RSVP is a control-plane protocol that is used
for signaling reservation requests at the micro-flow
level between two end stations. Traffic Engineering
extension, RSVP-TE, enables MPLS to scale in large
and complex IP based networks. LDP, per RFC3036,
defines a label distribution mechanism. LDP performs
a hop-by-hop approach to label distribution rather
than an end-to-end approach. LDP-TE extensions pro-
vide traffic-engineering capabilities to the
LDP protocol.
In addition, ZebOS ARS supports Constrained Shortest
Path First (CSPF) algorithm. The CSPF module
calculates, on demand, an optimum explicit route
(ER) based on the specified constraints, using TED
(Traffic Engineering Database) and pre-existing LSPs.
The resulting ER is used by a signaling protocol
(RSVP-TE or CR-LDP) for setting up Label Switched
Paths (LSP).
In order to set up a traffic engineered LSP, one needs
an interior gateway protocol (IGP) with traffic
engineering extensions such as OSPF-TE and CSPF.
Virtual Routing Support
The ZebOS NSM offers optional virtual routing (VR)
support for the OSPFv2 and BGP Modules. It provides
support for multiple Routing Information Bases
(RIBs) and multiple Forwarding Information Bases
(FIBs) per a physical router. Virtual Routing logically
subdivides a physical router into multiple virtual
routers. Each VR consists of either an OSPFv2 or a
BGP-4 Protocol Module, NSM/RIB, and Forwarding
Plane/FIB. Virtual routing technology allows each
virtual router to execute separate instances of the
routing protocol software and network management
software (for example, SNMP or the CLI). Each
virtual router can be independently monitored and
managed by the user. The physical I/O ports on
which packets are received or transmitted are put
under the control of the software modules that
comprise a virtual router. Packet buffer memory and
forwarding tables are subject to per-virtual-router
ZebOS™ Advanced Routing Suite
resource limits to ensure that no virtual router can
impact the operation of another. Each virtual router's
packet forwarding path is isolated from the other
virtual router, enabling administrators to engineer
the performance of each virtual router separately and
independently. Large traffic bursts flowing across
one virtual router in the system will not affect others.
This guarantees that end users of this service receive
consistent network performance.
Routing Redundancy Support
Network service providers require their equipment
to have high availability in order to deliver a robust
set of services to their customers. IP Infusion provides
routing redundancy for high availability through its
Routing Redundancy Module that consists of the
Redundant Management Module and the Network
Services Module (NSM). The Routing Redundancy
Module provides a mechanism for a primary and
backup control plane to be supported by ZebOS and
the routing protocols. A duplicate copy of the NSM
and the RIB are available on both the primary and
backup control plane processors. During normal
operation, the primary RIB is synchronized with the
backup RIB. During any primary control plane failure,
the backup control plane takes over routing operation
for any of the routing protocols, using the synchronized
backup RIB. When the primary is operating normally,
it again takes over routing operation. The ZebOS ARS
also provides a set of APIs that allows the control and
synchronization of other (non IP Infusion) applications.
Multicast Support
The ZebOS Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse
Mode (PIM-SM) Module routes multicast packets to
multicast groups and is designed to efficiently
establish distribution trees across wide area networks
(WANs). PIM-SM is called “protocol independent”
because it can use the route information that any
routing protocol enters into the multicast Routing
Information Base (RIB), or, as it is known in Windows
terminology, the multicast view. Sparse mode protocol
is designed for situations where multicast groups are
thinly populated across a large region, although it
can operate in LAN environments; but they are most
efficient over WAN.
3
Network Processor Integration Development, Documentation, and
Support
The ZebOS NSM supports both an operating system/
real-time operating system (OS/RTOS) abstraction
ZebOS ARS is written in the portable ANSI C
layer as well as a data plane abstraction layer. Our
programming language. ZebOS is both platform and
Network Processor API (NPapi) provides a mechanism
processor independent but is available with tools
to bind the ZebOS control plane functions with
and modules to easily support a variety of platforms.
popular network processors. IP Infusion is working
ZebOS ARS is delivered with extensive documentation
closely with the Network Processing Forum (NPF) to
including: Command Reference Manuals, Developer
design and implement a standard API for control to
Guides, Installation and Configuration Guide, and a
data plane interaction. Although this NPF API is not
RTOS Porting Guide. In addition, ZebOS support is
fully standardized, IP Infusion has implemented a
available and includes customer assistance and product
draft standard and is fully committed to tracking and
updates. IP Infusion's support staff is composed of
promoting this standard. Our NPapi currently supports
highly skilled network engineers developing,
the NPF API submission and will track the standard
supporting, and operating advanced IP networks.
as it develops. By integrating control and data plane
Together, these services provide a package that
components through its NPapi, IP Infusion helps enable developers to quickly port, integrate, and test
equipment developers to quickly bring products to the ZebOS Advanced Routing Suite.
market without the difficult integration work that
would otherwise be required. IP Infusion is working
with a range of popular network processing vendors
System Requirements
to ensure that these integrated solutions are readily
available and easy to implement. ZebOS can be ported to a variety of platforms as long
as they support an ANSI C compiler and include an
Management and Logging IPv4 and/or IPv6 TCP/IP stack. The ZebOS MPLS-LDP,
RSVP-TE, and CR-LDP Switching Module can be used
ZebOS ARS contains an industry standard CLI to with the MPLS forwarder provided, or it can be
manage and configure both the Network Services integrated with existing MPLS Forwarders. The
Module and all of the protocol modules. Anyone multicast capability must be used in conjunction
familiar with Cisco's command line interface will with a multicast forwarder. ZebOS contains both
quickly be able to pick up the ZebOS CLI. In addition, built-in support for a number of standard and real-time
SNMP Management Information Base (MIB) support operating systems and features to allow vendors to
is available to allow network management agents, as easily port to any RTOS. ZebOS also supports a
well as billing and provisioning applications, to pull number of popular processors, including Intel®
important data from the ZebOS software and its (Pentium), Motorola (PowerPC), and MIPS.
associated protocol modules for all standard defined
MIBs. Furthermore, ZebOS has extensive logging
capabilities both to log system events and errors.

IP Infusion Inc. Copyright 2002 IP Infusion Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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IP Infusion, ipinfusion and ZebOS are trademarks of IP
Suite 910 Infusion Inc. All other brands or product names are trade-
San Jose, CA 95113 marks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
tel: 408.794.1500 All specifications within this document are subject to
fax: 408.278.0521 change without notice.
sales@ipinfusion.com
Part No. 0180006-5/2002
www.ipinfusion.com