In the Nokia service model, the service edge routers are deployed at the provider edge. Services are provisioned on the service routers and transported across an IP and/or IP/MPLS provider core network in encapsulation tunnels created using generic router encapsulation MPLS label-switched paths (LSPs). The 7210 SAS-K 2F6C4T and 7210 SAS-K 3SFP+ 8C support transport tunnels that use MPLS LSPs or QinQ/dot1q Layer 2 uplinks. These tunnels are used to transport the services to the provider edge in a hierarchical configuration.
The service model uses logical service entities to construct a service. The logical service entities are designed to provide a uniform, service-centric configuration, management, and billing model for service provisioning. Some benefits of this service-centric design include the following:
Many services can be bound to a single customer.
Many services can be bound to a single tunnel.
Tunnel configurations are independent of the services they carry.
Changes are made to a single logical entity rather than multiple ports on multiple devices. It is easier to change one tunnel rather than several services.
The operational integrity of a logical entity (such as a service tunnel and service endpoints) can be verified rather than dozens of individual services improving management scaling and performance.
On 7210 SAS platforms, a failure in the network core can be correlated to specific subscribers and services.
QoS policies, filter policies, and accounting policies are applied to each service instead of correlating parameters and statistics from ports to customers to services.
Service provisioning uses logical entities to provision a service where additional properties can be configured for bandwidth provisioning, QoS, security filtering, accounting/billing to the appropriate entity.