E-Line service is defined in PBB (IEEE 802.1ah) as a point-to-point service over the B-component infrastructure. The Nokia implementation offers support for PBB E-Line through the mapping of multiple Epipe services to a backbone VPLS infrastructure.
The use of Epipe scales the E-Line services as no MAC switching, learning or replication is required to deliver the point-to-point service.
All packets ingressing the customer SAP/spoke SDP are PBB encapsulated and unicasted through the B-VPLS ‟tunnel” using the backbone destination MAC of the remote PBB PE. The Epipe service does not support the forwarding of PBB encapsulated frames received on SAPs or spoke SDPs through their associated B-VPLS service. PBB frames are identified based on the configured PBB Ethertype (0x88e7 by default).
All the packets ingressing the B-VPLS destined for the Epipe are PBB de-encapsulated and forwarded to the customer SAP/spoke SDP.
A PBB E-Line service support the configuration of a SAP or non-redundant spoke SDP.