Networking Features & Protocols

Mimomax provides a range of networking features and protocols at Layer 2 and Layer 3 levels to enable user segregation  and allow intercommunication between different local and remote devices.

LAYER 2

A VLAN is a virtual network that allows the grouping of devices at Layer 2 even if they’re not connected to the same network switch.  Membership is software configurable and each group would be assigned with a unique VLAN identification number.

Key features:

• Segregation of networks that transmit sensitive data, i.e. running different customers networks on different VLANs, allowing VLAN-based IPv4 subnetting;
• Allowing radio switch ports to connect VLAN-unaware devices via VLAN tagging, such as simple SCADA RTUs or non-capable equipment;
• Mimomax supports both serial SCADA and ethernet SCADA over use VLANs;
• Ability to run multiple VLANs over one radio network;
• Enabling IP traffic classification (QoS) per VLAN ID;
• Protection from broadcast storms with data rate configuration to limit ingress and/or egress switch port traffic.

LAYER 3

Layer 3 routing allows intercommunication between different remote and local network devices.

Key features:

• Redundancy using failover protocols such as VRRP;
• IPv4 ingress filtering using firewall and option to split horizon;
• Multi-discipline traffic classification and shaping;
• Multicast support for VoIP (PIM-SM) on point-to-point links.

Layer 3 Protocols

As streaming of voice and data has proliferated, Layer 3 Multicast applications have become predominant.

Mimomax supports the following protocols:

OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is a unicast routing protocol which determines the best route to other network devices and allows the routing to change if the network infrastructure changes.

It allows the user to see the point-to-point or multipoint Mimomax radio networks as part of larger networks with redundant paths and automatic fail-over management enabled.

To save bandwidth consumed by the routing layer, OSPF can run on a Layer 3 BRU with Layer 2 RRUs at the edge (i.e. the BRU connecting to radial RRUs.)  The BRU then aggregates its close-by routing information for the WAN, thereby promoting greater bandwidth efficiency over the L2 network.

PIM – SM (Protocol Independent Multicast – Sparse Mode) is a multicast protocol running for VoIP.  This protocol enables hosts registration using IGMP and effectively establishes multicast distribution trees across WANs by only sending multicast datagrams to those participating routers which require the datagram, i.e. have registered VoIP users connected behind.

VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) – this protocol (running as Layer 4 over IP) creates multiple virtual routers on a multi-access link to use the same virtual IP/MAC address.  As all participating routers share each other’s IP/MAC information, should a router fail there will be a rapid failover to another available router.

RoHC – Robust Header Compression is a standardized protocol used to compress the IP headers of internet packets.  This protocol is of particular use for streaming applications where the header information may make up as much as 60% of the total amount of data sent. Mimomax enhances header compression by expanding RoHC with Ethernet and VLAN tags compression and expanding this to a multipoint system. Additionally, MDAP SFE piggybacks compressed payload following the headers of compressed packets.  Customers using plain communications can benefit for better ratios of compression with payload compression being enabled.

GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation) is a protocol which can encapsulate multiple protocols over a single protocol infrastructure, transmitting from one tunnel endpoint to another. Other IP routers along the route cannot access the payload information – only the outer IP packet as it is forwarded to the GRE endpoint.  At the endpoint, the packet is decapsulated and the payload is delivered to its final destination.  GRE is a great way to segregate networks over a Layer 3 solution.