IEEE 802.1ah Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) Overview
Page 438 7210 SAS M Services Guide
IEEE 802.1ah Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) Overview
IEEE 802.1ah draft standard (IEEE802.1ah), also known as Provider Backbone Bridges (PBB), 
defines an architecture and bridge protocols for interconnection of multiple Provider Bridge 
Networks (PBNs - IEEE802.1ad QinQ networks). PBB is defined in IEEE as a connectionless 
technology based on multipoint VLAN tunnels. IEEE 802.1ah employs Provider MSTP as the 
core control plane for loop avoidance and load balancing. As a result, the coverage of the solution 
is limited by STP scale in the core of large service provider networks. The 7210 SAS M in network 
mode supposrts a native PBB Ethernet backbone deployment.
The IEEE model for PBB is organized around a B-component handling the provider backbone 
layer and an I-component concerned with the mapping of Customer or Provider Bridge (QinQ) 
domain (for example, MACs, VLANs) to the provider backbone (for example, B-MACs, B-
VLANs), that is, the I-component contains the boundary between the Customer and Backbone 
MAC domains. PBB encapsulates customer payload in a provider backbone Ethernet header, 
providing for Customer MAC hiding capabilities. With PBB, 7210 devices can be used for tier-1/2 
aggregation, encapsulating customer service frames in PBB, allowing the PE-rs devices deployed 
in the metro core to be aware of only provider MAC addresses and for metro service scaling.
7210 devices fully support only native PBB deployment. They do not support the integrated PBB 
VPLS model. In particular, 7210 devices do not support use of SDPs in PBB services.