Is there a way to test TRILL in a virtual lab?

Question

I don't have access to devices to run TRILL for testing and learning purposes, so is there a way to set-up a virtualized lab to try it ?

What would be the virtualisation system, the vendor, the software, the version...

Answer 1

There are few devices that support standards based TRILL in the real world.

Traditional Cisco IOS is probably the most /supported/ network OS for running in a hypervisor; however, in Cisco land the NXOS platform is the only platform that supports Fabric Path (Cisco's TRILL), and that won't work in Dynamips or IOU.

Furthermore TRILL is a L2 technology. Switches are hard to virtualize because of the special forwarding hardware (TCAM) used in them.

In short I'm afraid you're out of luck on using virtual switches to test TRILL.

Answer 2

As mentioned, virtualizing switch platforms is generally impossible to do because much of what takes place in a switch is done in hardware and not software (and the software often expects the hardware to be present).

Your best bet for this would be one of the companies that rent lab rack space. I know there are several that currently offer racks that include the Nexus hardware platform.

Answer 3

Although I'm uncertain, I suspect you could at least begin such an endeavor using Dynamips as a central component.

Dynamips is an emulator program that was written to emulate Cisco routers. Dynamips runs on Linux, Mac OS X or Windows and can emulate the hardware of the Cisco series routing platforms by directly booting an actual Cisco IOS software image into the emulator.

Dynamips is a Cisco router emulator written by Christophe Fillot. It emulates 1700, 2600, 3600, 3700, and 7200 hardware platforms, and runs standard IOS images. In Chris’ own words:

This kind of emulator would be useful to:

1. Be used as a training platform, with software used in real world. It would allow people to become more familiar with Cisco devices, Cisco being the world leader in networking technologies.
2. Test and experiment features of Cisco IOS.
3. Check quickly configurations to be deployed later on real routers...