PANTHEON.tech continues to develop its Cloud-Native Network Functions portfolio with the recent inclusion of Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) routing support, based on FRRouting. This inclusion complements and augments our current Stonework Enterprise routing offerings, providing customers with a choice of the usual networking vendors’ solutions.

Leveraging FRRouting, a Linux Foundation, open-source, industry-leading project, PANTHEON.tech provides a comprehensive suite of routing options. These include OSPF, BGP, and now IS-IS, which can fully integrate and interoperate with existing, or new, networking requirements.

As a cloud-native network function, our solution is designed to maximize container-based technologies and micro-services architecture.

We provide IS-IS feature to our customers with the following options:

IS-IS CNF – Standalone CNF appliance with IS-IS support
Stonework Enterprise – Security, switching, and routing features, now with IS-IS support

StoneWork Enterprise & IS-IS Integration

The control plane is based on a Ligato agent, which configures every aspect of FRR. The two protocols, OSPF & IS-IS, are running on separate daemons. Information (routes) are stored in Zebra (FRR IP routing manager), which translates these routes to the Linux kernel, towards the default Linux routing table.

The data plane forwards this information via a TAP tunnel, towards a VPP instance (supporting IS-IS & OSPF), which together with another Ligato agent in the StoneWork container enables OSPF & IS-IS functionality in a FRRouting, cloud-native network function.

With the power of containerization and enterprise-grade routing protocols, StoneWork Enterprise enables network service providers to easily get on board with cloud-native acceleration and enjoy all of its benefits.

What is FRRouting?

FRRouting (FRR) is a completely open-source internet routing protocol suite, with support for BGP, OSPF, OpenFabric, and more. FRR provides IP routing services, routing & policy decisions, and general exchange of routing information with other routers. Its incredible speed is achieved by installing routing decisions directly into the OS kernel. FRR supports a wide range of L3 configurations and dynamic routing protocols, making it a flexible and lightweight choice for a variety of deployments.

The magic of FRR lies within its natural ability to integrate with the Linux/Unix IP networking stack. This in turn allows for the development of networking use-cases – be it LAN switching & routing, internet access routers or peering, and even connecting hosts/VMs/containers to a network. It is hosted as a Linux Foundation collaborative project.

What is the IS-IS protocol?

The Intermediate System to Intermediate System is one of the most commonly deployed routing protocols across large network service providers and enterprises.

Specifically, it is an interior gateway protocol (IGP), used for exchanging router information within an autonomous system. IS-IS operates over L2 and doesn’t require IP connectivity and provides more security. It is more flexible and scalable than the OSPF protocol.

While different use-cases might require a substitution for IS-IS, our StoneWork Enterprise solution has recently enabled IS-IS integration as part of FRRouting, including a possible IS-IS CNF (Cloud Native Network Function) – standalone appliance.

Buy StoneWork Enterprise today!

If you are interested in StoneWork Enterprise, make sure to contact us today for a free, introductory consultation!

StoneWork is a high-performance, all-(CNFs)-in-one network solution.

Thanks to its modular architecture, StoneWork dynamically integrates all CNFs from our portfolio. A configuration-dependent startup of modules provides feature-rich control plane capabilities by preserving a single, high-performance data plane.

This way, StoneWork achieves the best-possible resource utilization, unified declarative configuration, and re-use of data paths for packet punting between cloud-native network functions. Due to utilizing the FD.io VPP data plane and container orchestration, StoneWork shows excellent performance, both in the cloud and bare-metal deployments.

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