Introduction to the VRP network operating system

The VRP (versatile Routing Platform) , the universal routing platform, is the research experience of Huawei in the field of communication, and is the operating system platform of all data communication products based on IP/ATM architecture. Huawei products that run the VRP operating system include routers, LAN switches, ATM switches, dial-up access servers, IP telephony gateways, carrier-grade integrated service access platforms, intelligent service selection gateways, and dedicated hardware firewalls . The core switching platform is based on IP or ATM.

The operating system adopts layered design, which is divided into physical layer hardware related drive interface, real-time operating system and task dispatch interface, IP/ATM forwarding center and Routing policy Management, system management and Configuration service, routing application layer and service layer.

The Huawei VRP provides a modular architecture with rich functional features and application-based tailoring and scalability capabilities. The VRP is Huawei's fully autonomous intellectual property network operating system that provides a consistent network interface, user interface, and management interface for a variety of hardware platforms, and offers a flexible and versatile application solution with more than 300 features. The VRP, with IP/ATM switching platform as its core, integrates the communication elements such as routing technology, QoS service technology, VPN tunneling technology, security technology and digital video/voice technology. Taking the IP Turboenginetm technology independently developed by Huawei as an example, the traditional processing method of network beginning is to pass through the physical layer, link layer, and network layer and routing strategy layer, etc., through the layer task scheduling and analysis processing, the message processing speed is limited by each layer protocol stack processing flow and the bottleneck of operating system scheduling. Only by the increase of CPU and bus to improve the forwarding rate, and IP Turboenginetm technology completely changed message forwarding scheduling process and routing lookup algorithm, composed of two core technologies: Hardware forwarding/interrupt forwarding and fast routing lookup algorithm. Hardware forwarding/interrupt forwarding bypasses the traditional layer beginning processing scheduling process, and in the Interrupt service program of receiving the packet in the physical layer buffer, it realizes the type recognition and routing lookup of the message, and points the head pointer of the message to the sending queue of the corresponding interface within the interrupt, thus realizing the interrupt forwarding. Due to the interruption of the program instructions can not be too long and affect the system operation, high-speed routing lookup algorithm is also the core technology, it can be guaranteed at the IPV4 address, up to four times to find the destination route and related interface index, and the size of the routing table is independent, this technology to ensure that the very short program instructions to complete the message routing To provide the basis for the implementation of interrupt forwarding, so that the device's message forwarding speed increased by 5-10 times! Coupled with the Distributed processing technology and QoS technology, Huawei Network products in the performance indicators with international first-class standards.

Huawei's VRP, with its own intellectual property rights, is a continuous development platform that maximizes user investment

Comparison of the Huawei VRP with Cisco IOS

1. Friendly interface

Huawei's VRP platform draws on Cisco's command-line style, making it easy for users familiar with Cisco products to use Huawei products in a very good way, but all of the hardware and software technologies are their own intellectual property. User interface style is no intellectual property, like today's popular global Windows desktop operating system is inspired by the Macintosh, wps2000 borrowed from word style, such as the user's "imitation" why not? And the Huawei VRP also supports command-line Chinese display, which is easy for people to use, while Cisco does not have the ability to say that the Huawei VRP provides a more user-friendly interface to its countrymen.

2. Network operating system of IP-based business platform

The VRP is a network operation platform with IP technology as its core, which integrates more perfect IP routing technology, IP switching technology, IP service quality, IP multimedia technology and IP security technology. In the development of the network from scratch, the evolution and development of network protocols is very rapid, many "ancient" protocols in today's network applications gradually disappeared, such as AppleTalk, DECnet, etc. has gradually withdrawn from the historical stage. Because the VRP is a completely new platform, it does not have to bear the heavy burden of maintaining heterogeneous network compatibility. Therefore, as a system to provide pure IP service as the technology direction, the VRP system has been fully maintained and played a simple and efficient IP protocol family.

Cisco's iOS is not as efficient and stable as Cisco itself boasts, and Cisco supports AppleTalk, DecNet, Banyan and other networks as its weaknesses, and Cisco IOS, when it comes to IP packet transfer, It is also possible to consider maintaining compatibility with classical network protocols-even if these protocols are not used, users will have to pay extra for the efficiency, maintenance, and cost of these classical protocols.

Cisco's iOS has a heavy burden, and even if you don't run and use these protocols, users will have to pay additional costs to increase memory and processing overhead, reduce system performance and reliability, and increase unnecessary investment, which is why Cisco has so many versions. Therefore, chatty is the advantage of Cisco, but also his shortcomings.

3. Open interconnection of operating system

A-the openness of platform standards

The VRP is closely following the RFC standard, ITU-T standards and Chinese national standards in the development process, and strictly guarantees the compliance of the delivered software systems to these standards. At the same time actively participate in national IP related to the formulation of relevant national standards. Through effective protocol standards compliance testing and active participation in national standards development, the VRP system is always an open system that can communicate with other data communication vendors/Telecom manufacturers on IP products in all protocol features.

Cisco iOS uses a large number of private protocols in its software, such as extended HDLC, IGRP/EIGRP,CDP, and so on; these private protocols hinder the scalability of the network structure when the user constructs the network, and the maintenance manager who cultivates the private protocol also increases the total operating cost of the network, while Just like the private serial number in the Pentium chip, private protocols that fail to predict the outcome of the operation also pose a potential threat to the security of the network.

B-the openness of platform architecture

The VRP is a software platform that realizes a richer IP service, how to ensure that the platform chooses and customizes its own version according to the actual business needs of the network, and how to ensure that the platform will continue to expand its business support smoothly in the future development, which presents a great challenge to the system structure of VRP. The VRP platform is an open architecture based on the mature commercial operating system scheduling kernel, and all the services that the platform can provide are added to the VRP software system in the form of components. The connectivity between components and components through a standard soft bus interface effectively guarantees the scalability of the VRP software. Users can tailor the components of the VRP software system to their own network implementations, while the Open soft bus interface also provides the possibility for a seamless addition of third-party services to the system.

Cisco iOS software lacks the ability to trim, lacks the capability to customize software based on user network deployment, all of the business, features and protocols are cured together, and it can be envisaged that in the IP business a great rich tomorrow, how does such an operating system support the rapid increase of new business?

C-Network interoperability and version compatibility

With the development of the VRP, more and more business is added to this software platform system. According to Huawei's many years of development experience in the telecom industry, Huawei recognizes that maintaining the consistency of the online version is critical to the maintainability and scalability of the network in the actual network operation. Therefore, the VRP in the version of the development process, pay attention to the consistency of the online version: The VRP on-line version of the relatively single, a limited number of online versions between 100% strictly compatible.

Cisco provides the product, the software version is frequently upgraded, there is agreement between different software versions of interoperability issues and configuration management compatibility issues, these problems increase the overall network maintenance difficulty, but also limit the possibility of network smooth expansion.

In a comparison between Cisco and Huawei, the authors repeatedly claim that "Cisco's iOS has undergone repeated modifications and upgrades and is now fairly stable and complete," and Cisco is indeed "repeatedly modified and upgraded" with countless versions of its iOS, much more than DOS and windows, Do not know how many patches, how to ensure compatibility between the version, interoperability? Today, IP technology-led network technology is developing rapidly, new technologies and applications are emerging and mature, how can we achieve "fairly stable and perfect"?

Cisco IOS has too many historical burdens, version up to hundreds of, while endless mergers and acquisitions and the original products belonging to a number of manufacturers into Cisco IOS, each version of the need to consider compatibility, too many patches, resulting in a lot of garbage code in the system, resulting in network operation of the hidden dangers! It can be seen that Cisco's iOS is saddled with a heavy burden and is a deadly weakness for him.

Huawei's VRP supports the most common and practical communication protocols in today's network, such as the current mainstream TCP/IP stack, the SNA/DLSW system, which is also widely used in the financial sector, and the Ipx/spx protocol, which is used extensively in securities, paging and other industries, and rejects outdated protocol systems. It makes the VRP operating system small, the fault point and the hidden trouble are few, the operation efficiency is high, lean but not short, this is the advantage of Huawei VRP.

As a communication platform integrating IP core technology and carrier-grade high reliability software design, Huawei's VRP platform has shown unique advantages and strong vitality, and in the expansion of Shanghai Telecom's 210,000 port data network, the VRP platform-based Huawei Access server and router products have eliminated all foreign manufacturers, Winning the bid, indicating that domestic network equipment has been very mature and stable, into the scale application stage, and can better adapt to the construction of domestic data network.

Introduction to the VRP network operating system