Cisco Publishes White Paper on Switching AVB Over Its Gear

AVB (Audio Video Bridging) is the common name for the set of technical standards developed by the IEEE Audio Video Bridging Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 standards committee. This task group was renamed the Time-Sensitive Networking Task Group in November 2012 to reflect the expanded scope of its work. IEEE 802.1 defines a set of standards that provide the means for highly reliable delivery of low-latency, time-synchronized AV streaming services through Layer 2 Ethernet networks.

AV migration to an Ethernet infrastructure was recognized as a means of addressing the needs of professional AV equipment in addition to lowering total cost of ownership (TCO) and enabling transparent integration of new services. Currently, however, the deployment mechanism lacks flexibility and interoperability.

To accelerate the adoption of Ethernet-based AV deployments that are interoperable, IEEE developed the IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging (AVB) standards. This standard defines a mechanism whereby endpoints and the network function as a whole to enable high-quality AV streaming across consumer applications to professional AV deployments over an Ethernet infrastructure.

The transition from non-networking (non-Ethernet and non-IP, like HDMI) to networking (Ethernet and IP) has already started. AV and production media and controller solution builders are already moving to take advantage of this standards-based transition, seeking not only lower TCO (no more license fees), but also scalability (more efficient deployment, installation, and management) to enable new services and capabilities.

Many switch and endpoint vendors support for IEEE 802.1 AVB. Starting from Cisco NX-OS Software Release 7.3, Cisco supports the standard on Cisco Nexus 7700 platform switches, which include capacity at 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

In Cisco’s white paper, they describe AVB designs based on the IEEE 802.1 standards and deployment use cases for a Cisco AVB enterprise media network. You can read it all here.