ECP-206 Ericsson Certified Associate - IP Networking Question and Answers

 The operating system used in Ericsson Router 6000 products is ERS (Ericsson Router Software). ERS is based on IPOS (IP Operating System), which is a common operating system for Ericsson’s IP portfolio. ERS provides advanced features and functionality for IP transport, such as MPLS, Segment Routing, QoS, IPSec, synchronization, SDN, and more. ERS also supports seamless integration with Ericsson Radio System and Ericsson Network Manager.

References: Router 6000 Series - Ericsson, Router 6675 Datasheet - Winncom

The purpose of the RT attribute is to identify the destination VPN on the egress PE. RT stands for route target, which is a BGP extended community attribute that is used in MPLS VPNs. RT is attached to VPN routes by the ingress PE router and is used to control the import and export of routes between different VPNs. The egress PE router uses the RT value to determine which VPN routes belong to which VPN customers and installs them in the appropriate VRF table56.

References: IP Routing: BGP Configuration Guide - BGP-RT and VPN … - Cisco, : The Ruby Text element - MDN Web Docs

The next-hop to reach the host 192.168.1.129 is 10.126.131.250. This can be determined by looking at the routing table in the exhibit. The host 192.168.1.129 falls within the range of the network 192.168.1.64/26, which has a next-hop of 10.126.131.250. References: Ericsson IP Networking - IP Addressing, Software Installation and Upgrade Overview (Junos OS)

A P router is a provider router that is part of the service provider’s core network in an MPLS environment. A P router does not have any customer routes or VPN information, but only has information about how to reach other P routers and PE routers in the same MPLS domain. A P router performs label switching, which means that it forwards labeled packets based on their top label in the label stack. A P router can perform two possible label actions:

• Swap: The P router replaces the incoming label with a new label that corresponds to the next hop along the label-switched path (LSP). The new label is determined by looking up the label forwarding information base (LFIB) based on the incoming label and interface.
• PHP: The P router removes the top label from the packet at the penultimate hop before reaching the egress PE router. This is done to avoid an extra lookup on the egress PE router, which can forward the packet based on its IP header or another label in the stack.

A P router does not perform push or drop actions on labels. A push action means adding one or more labels to the packet, which is done by an ingress PE router when initiating an LSP. A drop action means discarding a packet, which is done by any router when there is no matching entry in its LFIB or routing table. References: Provider (P) Router in IP MPLS Network - Cisco Community, MPLS Fundamentals: Forwarding Labeled Packets - Cisco Press, MPLS Label Switching | MPLS Operation | Push, Swap,Push ⋆ IPCisco

The correct order of DiffServ priority (highest to lowest) for the DiffServ classes: Default Forwarding (DF), Network Control (NC), Assured Forwarding (AF), and Expedited Forwarding (EF) is EF, NC, AF, DF. DiffServ is a QoS model that classifies and prioritizes traffic into different service classes based on the DSCP field in the IP header. The DSCP field is a 6-bit field that can encode up to 64 different per-hop behaviors (PHBs). The DiffServ classes are predefined groups of PHBs that have similar characteristics and requirements. The four main DiffServ classes are:

• EF: This class provides the highest priority and lowest delay for real-time applications such as voice and video. The DSCP value for EF is 101110 or 46 in decimal12.
• NC: This class provides the second highest priority and low delay for network control traffic such as routing protocols and network management. The DSCP value for NC is 110000 or 48 in decimal12.
• AF: This class provides four levels of assured forwarding with different drop probabilities for each level. AF is suitable for applications that require guaranteed bandwidth and delivery assurance, such as web browsing and email. The DSCP values for AF range from 001010 to 011110 or 10 to 46 in decimal12.
• DF: This class provides the lowest priority and best-effort service for applications that can tolerate packet loss and delay, such as file transfer and backup. The DSCP value for DF is 000000 or 0 in decimal12.

References: Differentiated Services - Wikipedia, DSCP - Differentiated Services Code Point - Mpirical

Priority queuing (PQ) is a queuing method that establishes four interface output queues that serve different priority levels: high, medium, normal, and low. Traffic in the highest priority queue will experience the least amount of jitter and delay compared to traffic in the other queues, because PQ always services the higher-priority queues first. However, this can also cause traffic in lower priority queues to be starved of bandwidth, especially if the highest priority queue is oversubscribed. Traffic in the highest priority queue is not only reserved for voice traffic, but can also include network control and routing traffic. Traffic in all queues are not always guaranteed a minimum bandwidth, because PQ does not provide any bandwidth reservation mechanism. References: Quality of Service (QoS) Queues and Queuing Explained, Chapter: Configuring Priority Queueing - Cisco

The correct ordering (outer to inner) of packet headers in an IP/MPLS packet is Ethernet, MPLS, IP. An IP/MPLS packet is a packet that is encapsulated with an MPLS label stack between the Ethernet header and the IP header. The Ethernet header contains the source and destination MAC addresses and the EtherType field that indicates the type of the payload. The MPLS label stack contains one or more labels that are used for forwarding decisions by the MPLS routers. Each label consists of four fields: label value, experimental bits, bottom of stack, and time to live. The IP header contains the source and destination IP addresses and other information for routing and fragmentation. The order of the headers is important because it determines how the packet is processed by different devices in the network12.

References: MPLS Label Stack - Cisco, MPLS Fundamentals: 3 - MPLS Packet Forwarding

Within an IGP area, routers advertise information about themselves and relay information delivered by neighbors. This is how link-state routing protocols such as OSPF and IS-IS work. They flood information about the network topology to all routers in the same area or domain. That information is then used to build a complete network connectivity map and to calculate the shortest path to destinations. Routers do not summarize or discard information within an area, unless they are configured to do so by some filtering mechanism. References: Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols, IP Routing: ISIS Configuration Guide - IS-IS Overview and Basic Configuration

Two statements that are correct for LDP are:

• LSRs send UDP hello messages for neighbor discovery. LDP is a protocol that distributes labels for MPLS forwarding along the shortest path calculated by an IGP. LDP uses two types of messages: discovery messages and session messages. Discovery messages are used to discover and maintain adjacency with other LSRs that support LDP. Discovery messages are sent as UDP datagrams to the well-known multicast address 224.0.0.2 (all routers on this subnet) on port 64634.
• LSRs use TCP to negotiate LDP session parameters. Session messages are used to establish, maintain, and terminate LDP sessions between LSRs. Session messages are also used to exchange label mappings, notification messages, and keepalive messages. Session messages are sent as TCP segments to port 64634.

References: Ldp | Microsoft Learn, Label Distribution Protocol - Wikipedia

The protocol that would be used to bundle multiple Ethernet ports into a virtual link with an aggregated bandwidth is LACP, which stands for Link Aggregation Control Protocol. LACP is a protocol that allows two or more devices to negotiate the formation of a link aggregation group (LAG), also known as an EtherChannel or a port channel. A LAG combines multiple physical links into one logical link that provides increased bandwidth, load balancing, and redundancy. LACP is defined in IEEE 802.3ad and 802.1AX standards12.

References: Link Aggregation Control Protocol - Wikipedia, What is “link aggregation” and how does it benefit your network? | PC Gamer

According to RFC1918, there are three network blocks reserved as private networks that are not allocated to any specific organization and are not routable on the public Internet. These are:

• 10.0.0.0/8 (10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255)
• 172.16.0.0/12 (172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255)
• 192.168.0.0/16 (192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255)

Out of these, only option B (10.254.1.0/24) falls within one of the private network blocks (10.0.0.0/8). Option A (172.16.1.0/9) is not valid because it exceeds the /12 prefix length of the private network block (172.16.0.0/12). Option C (193.168.1.0/24) is not valid because it does not belong to any of the private network blocks, and is actually assigned to RIPE NCC as a public network block . Option D (172.15.1.0/24) is also not valid because it does not belong to any of the private network blocks, and is actually assigned to ARIN as a public network block . References: RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets, Private network - Wikipedia, [RIPE NCC IPv4 Address Space Chart], [ARIN WHOIS Database Search]

Two protocols that apply to both IPv4 and IPv6 are:

• SNMP: This stands for Simple Network Management Protocol, which is a protocol that allows network administrators to monitor and manage network devices such as routers, switches, servers, printers, etc. SNMP uses a client-server model, where an SNMP manager (client) can query or configure an SNMP agent (server) on a network device using SNMP messages. SNMP can operate over both IPv4 and IPv6 networks56.
• DNS: This stands for Domain Name System, which is a protocol that translates human-readable domain names (such as www.example.com) into numerical IPaddresses (such as 192.0.2.1 or 2001:db8::1) that identify network devices. DNS uses a hierarchical distributed database of name servers that store and resolve domain names and IP addresses. DNS can support both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses78.

References: Simple Network Management Protocol - Wikipedia, SNMP over IPv6 - Cisco, Domain Name System - Wikipedia, DNS for IPv6 - Cisco

Referring to the exhibit, the two Ericsson routers that support the 100GE interface are Router 6675 and Router 6672. The 100GE interface is a high-speed Ethernet interface that operates at 100 gigabits per second. The Ericsson Router 6000 series is a family ofrouters that provide IP transport for mobile and fixed networks. The Router 6675 is a 5G combined access and E-RAN switch with 100GE interfaces and 320Gb forwarding capacity. The Router 6672 is a high-capacity metro aggregation router with 100GE interfaces and 1.6Tb forwarding capacity12.

References: Router 6000 Series - Ericsson, New Ericsson Router 6000 series couples radio and IP transport for 5G future - Global Brands Magazine

In OSPFv2, the route characteristic that is used to determine the best path is the cost. The cost is a metric that represents the link bandwidth, delay, reliability, or other factors. The cost is inversely proportional to the bandwidth, meaning that a higher bandwidth link has a lower cost. The cost of a route is calculated by adding the costs of all links along the path. OSPFv2 uses the following formula to calculate the cost of an interface:

Cost = Reference bandwidth / Interface bandwidth in bps

The reference bandwidth is a constant value that can be configured by the network administrator. By default, it is 100 Mbps. The interface bandwidth is the actual bandwidth of the interface in bits per second. For example, if an interface has a bandwidth of 10 Mbps, its cost would be 100 Mbps / 10 Mbps = 101415.

OSPFv2 does not use jitter, packet loss, or delay as route characteristics to determine the best path. Jitter is the variation in latency or delay between packets. Packet loss is the percentage of packets that are dropped or corrupted during transmission. Delay is the time it takes for a packet to travel from source to destination. These characteristics are not part of the OSPFv2 protocol and are not advertised in OSPFv2 LSAs1617.

References: OSPF Metric cost Calculation Formula Explained - ComputerNetworkingNotes, OSPF Cost – OSPF Routing Protocol Metric Explained - Study-CCNA, Open Shortest Path First - Wikipedia, OSPF Metric = Cost - Cisco

A label-edged router (LER) is a PE router. A PE router is a provider edge router, which is a router that connects an MPLS network to a customer network. A LER is a term used in MPLS to describe a router that resides at the ingress and egress points of an MPLS network, handling both labelled and unlabelled packets. A LER performs label operations such as adding, removing, or swapping labels on packets entering or leaving the MPLS network34.

References: What is Label Edge Router (LER)? - Definition from Techopedia, LER - Label Edge Router - Mpirical