Advanced QoS for significant services

Consistent service quality and reliable connecting ability in a converged network is the key for Carrier to connect and satisfy customers; therefore the ability to control traffic flow and set traffic policy becomes more critical than ever. The Zyxel MES3500 Series offers wire-speed flow control that classifies and prioritizes the incoming packets according to the predefine QoS policies that meet requirements of service providers.

In terms of classification, the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field and the 802.1p Class of Service (CoS) field are identified to assess the priority of incoming packets. Classification and reclassification can be based on criteria as specific as rules based on IP, MAC addresses, VLAN ID or TCP/UDP port number. For bandwidth management, the MES3500 Series provides 8 priority queues per port for different types of traffics, allowing service providers to set policy-based rate limitations that take full advantage of constrained network resources and guarantee the best performance.
 

Enhanced security for protection among customers

Avoiding subscribers affecting each other on a shared network or shared device is a major concern for service providers. The Zyxel MES3500 Series offers a complete set of security features to protect user data while administrating the traffics. Port security provides the ability to deny unauthorized users from accessing the network. Moreover, the 802.1X feature cooperating with RADIUS is useful to prevent unauthorized access based on username and password (or other credentials) and acts as powerful access control for converged networks with mixed wired and wireless access.

The MES3500 Series provides a multilayer (L2/L3/L4) ACL suite of sophisticated policy-based control mechanisms that enables service providers to deploy easily based on actual network environment needs via a Web GUI or command line interface to prevent abnormal or illegal access. The policies can be defined to deny packets based on source and destination MAC addresses, IP addresses or TCP/UDP ports.
 

Resilient and redundant design

A quick recovery and round-the-clock network is vital for service providers to establish a robust network. The MES3500 Series provides comprehensive features to make sure network is well operated. The IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation feature reduces network downtime by providing redundant paths and bandwidth aggregation to critical connections, while IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) and IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) allow immediate recovery from failed connections by sending packets via the backup link.
 

Digital Diagnostics Monitoring Interface (DDMI) SFP support

The enhanced digital interface allows real-time access to the device operating parameters, and it includes optional digital features such as soft control and monitoring of SFP I/O signals. In addition, the MES3500 series fully incorporates the functionality needed to implement digital alarms and warnings from fault isolation and failure prediction tasks as well as component monitoring features, among others.

With the digital diagnostic monitoring interface, the MES3500 Series enables users to easily detect packet loss from transceivers and aging cables; therefore users can not only avoid troubles such as unstable networking services, but also boost productivity significantly.

DDMI Monitors:

• Temperature
• Supply voltage
• Transmitted bias current
• Transmitted power
• Received power

All features listed above include alarm and warning thresholds.
 

Rich IPv6 features built-in for future-proof network expansions

As Zyxel considers IPv6 management features as a future trend, complete IPv6 host management capabilities are added to the MES3500 Series for guaranteed IPv6/4 migration and future-proof expansion. It’s not only beneficial for high-density Fast Ethernet deployments, but also capable of preventing investment loss and therefore perfectly suitable for both network cores and edges.