Wholesale retail model

In the wholesale retail model (Figure: Wholesale retail model), the wholesaler instance connections that are common to the access nodes are distributed to many retail instances. A subscriber host attached to an access node connected in the wholesaler service can be instantiated in a retail service and obtain IP addresses from the retailers address space. The service context of the retailer is determined during the subscriber host authentication phase (for example, by the Alc-Retail-Serv-Id attribute or the Alc-Retail-Serv-Name attribute in RADIUS or the retail-service-id CLI command in the local user database).

Upstream subscriber traffic ingresses into the wholesaler instance and after identification is then forwarded into the retail instance. The reverse occurs for traffic in the downstream direction.

Figure: Wholesale retail model

In a wholesale retail model, two subscriber interfaces must be configured and linked together: one in the wholesale VPRN and one in the retail service.

The wholesale subscriber interface defines the IP subnets and host specific configuration parameters for subscriber hosts belonging to the wholesaler. There are associated group interfaces that contain the SAPs which connect to the access nodes.

The retail subscriber interface defines the IP subnets and host specific configuration parameters for subscriber hosts belonging to the retailer. The retail subscriber interface is linked to a wholesale subscriber interface for forwarding by explicit configuration. There are no associated group interfaces.

For example:

config>service
        vprn 1000 customer 1 create
            subscriber-interface "sub-int-ws-1" create
            # wholesale subscriber interface
                --- snip ---
                group-interface "group-int-1-1" create
                    --- snip ---
                    sap 1/1/1:1 create
                        --- snip ---
                    exit
                exit
            exit
        exit


       vprn 1001 customer 1 create
            subscriber-interface "sub-int-rt-1" fwd-service 1000    \\
                            fwd-subscriber-interface "sub-int-ws-1" create
            # linked retail subscriber interface
                --- snip ---
            exit
        exit

A retail subscriber interface can be linked to a single wholesale subscriber interface and context only. Subscriber interface chaining (linking a retail subscriber interface to another retail subscriber interface) is not supported. Multiple retail subscriber interfaces belonging to different retail contexts can be associated with a single wholesale subscriber interface. When a retail subscriber interface is linked to a wholesale context, all other retail subscriber interfaces from the same retailer must be linked to the same wholesale context.