Copyright 2000 Vesta Corporation, All rights reserved This document is provided as is with no warranty expressed or implied

A Primer on Digital Wrappers for Optical Transport Networks

Authors: Cynthia Kocialski and Joseph D. Harwood Vesta Corporation 5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 320 Santa Clara, CA 95054 April 2000

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Copyright 2000 Vesta Corporation, All rights reserved This document is provided as is with no warranty expressed or implied

1. Overview
This document describes the Optical Channel Digital Wrapper technology proposed by Lucent. Conceptually, a Digital Wrapper is similar to SONET/SDH in that payload data is encapsulated in a frame structure that carries overhead data as well as payload data. The basic OCh Digital Wrapper is independent of the payload carried in the wrapper. The Optical Channel Payload Envelope (OCh PE) can carry any type of data: SONET/SDH, GbE, 10GbE, ATM, IP, and so on. The payload is allowed to float within the OCH PE without the use of a pointer processing mechanism. The Payload Envelope is encapsulated by the Optical Channel Operation, Administration, and Maintenance (OCh OAM) bytes. These are the overhead bytes that contain similar information as the Section Overhead, Line Overhead, and Path Overhead bytes of the SONET/SDH frame.

OCh-OH 16 OH Bytes

Payload Envelope 3808 Data Bytes The Digital Wrapper is independent of the data carried in the Payload Envelope. Possible payload traffic types include: SONET/SDH IP GbE, 10 GbE ATM 4080 Bytes Per Frame. Each frame is 16 rows of 255 bytes. (This is not a typo, it really is 255 not 256!)

Check Bytes 256 FEC Bytes

Figure 1. Digital Wrapper Frame

Like SONET/SDH, there will be a set of indicators for Optical Network Fault and Performance Management. Concepts such as Loss of Signal, Bit Interleaved Parity(BIP), Bit Error Rate (BER), Automatic Protection Switching (APS), upstream and downstream defect indications, etc are incorporated into the Digital Wrappers. Several other mechanisms, such as Automatic Switching Optical Networks (ASON) are currently being defined by the T1X1 Working Groups, which are strongly guided by Nortel and Lucent. The major difference between the frame formats of SONET/SDH and Digital Wrappers is the method of scaling to increased line rates. This difference is described in more detail in a later section.

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2. SONET/SDH Versus DIGITAL WRAPPER FORMATS

One major difference between SONET/SDH and the Digital Wrapper is that SONET/SDH frames are always carried at 8 kHz, whereas Digital Wrapper frames can be carried at any arbitrary frequency. Since SONET/SDH frames are always 8 kHz, the frame structure is different for each line rate supported. For example, an OC-12 SONET/SDH frame has four times as many bytes as an OC-3 SONET/SDH frame. In contrast, Digital Wrapper frames always have the exact same format. Increasing the line rate by a factor of four doesnt cause the number of bytes in a Digital Wrapper frame to increase by a factor of four, it allows four times as many Digital Wrapper frames to be transmitted in the same amount of time. The diagrams below illustrate the difference between SONET/SDH and Digital Wrappers when increasing the line rate by a factor of three. In the SONET/SDH format, three STS-1 frames are interleaved to form the STS-3 SONET/SDH frame. However, for the Digital Wrappers the three multiframes are transmitted back to back.

SONET STS-1 FRAME TRANSMISSION IN 125 us

A1 A2 J0 SPE (87 bytes) B1 E1 F1 SPE (87bytes) .. S1 Z2 E2 SPE(87 bytes)

SONET STS-3 FRAME TRANSMISSION IN 125 us

A1 B1 A1 -A1 -A2 E1 A2 -A2 -J0 F1 Z0 -Z0 -SPE ( 3 x 87 bytes ) SPE ( 3 x 87 bytes )

S1

--

--

Z2

M0

M1

E2

--

--

SPE ( 3 x 87 bytes )

DIGITAL WRAPPER MULTIFRAME TRANSMITTED IN TIME N ( STM-16)

SOH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes SOH TCOH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes POH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes POH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes

DIGITAL WRAPPER MULTIFRAMES TRANSMITTED IN TIME N ( 3 x STM-16)

SOH 16 bytes SOH 16 bytes SOH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes SOH TCOH 16 bytes SOH TCOH 16 bytes SOH TCOH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes POH 16 bytes POH 16 bytes POH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes POH 16 bytes POH 16 bytes POH 16 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes Payload 16x238 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes FEC 16x16 bytes

Figure 2. Digital Wrapper Frame Format versus SONET/SDH Format

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3. Frame and Multiframe Formats

A Digital Wrapper frame can be considered to consist of 16 rows of 255 bytes per row, or a total of 4080 bytes. This is shown in the diagram below:

Row 1 2 3 16

Col 1 1 2 3 16

Col 2 17 18 19 32

Col 239 3809 3810 3811 3824

Col 240 3825 3826 3827 3840

Col 255 4065 4066 4067 4080

Figure 3. Digital Wrapper Frame Format composed of 16 subframes (or rows)

The numbers in each box represent transmission order. Thus, all sixteen bytes of column 1 are sent first, followed by all sixteen bytes of column 2, etc., ending with the sixteen bytes of column 255. This is in contrast to SONET/SDH, where bytes are sent per row rather than per column. The documentation describes a subframe, but the definition of a subframe is not consistent between documents. Following the convention in Lucents proposal to the T1 committee, each row is a subframe. Thus, there are sixteen subframes in a frame. Column 1 of the Digital Wrapper frame is used for overhead, described in more detail later. Columns 2 through 239 are used for payload. Columns 240 through 255 are used for ECC, also described later. Thus, 238 / 255 of the bytes in the Digital Wrapper frame are used for payload, which reduces to a ratio of 14 / 15. Since the Digital Wrapper frame contains only 16 overhead bytes available for allocation, a multiframe format consisting of four consecutive frames is proposed, providing 64 bytes of overhead. All 4080 bytes of frame 1 are sent first, followed by frame 2, then frame 3, and finally frame 4.

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4. Payload Envelope
The client signal actually carried in the Digital Wrapper frame is free to float within the payload envelope. The format of the client signal is not constrained by the Digital Wrapper frame; it need only be a constant bit-rate signal within the bandwidth of the Digital Wrapper payload envelope. The Digital Wrapper payload envelope can be viewed as a format independent, constant bit-rate channel. No pointers in the Digital Wrapper frame overhead indicate the frame positions of the client signal within the payload envelope. To transport a constant bit-rate client signal of bandwidth N, a Digital Wrapper carried on a signal of bandwidth (15 / 14) * N is required. The proposed Digital Wrapper format was defined this way so that an Optical Transport Network can be constructed that does not limit data formats it can carry or services that can be provided over it. The OTN simply transports Digital Wrapper frames; it is up to devices at the ingress at egress points to be provisioned appropriately. Also, increasing the line rate also has no effect on the format of transported data, only on the amount of data that is transported.

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5. Overhead Bytes
The allocation of overhead bytes in a multiframe is shown in the diagram below: OCh-SOH Frame 1 OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA1 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OA2 Framing OCh-SOH/OCh-TCOH Frame 2 OJ1 Section Trace OD1 Section Data Com X2_3 Section Growth X2_4 Section Growth X2_5 Section Growth OJ2 TC Trace OG1 TC Status OM1 TC BQI ON1 TC IEC OK1 TC APS OK2 TC APS OK3 TC APS OD2 TC Data Com X2_14 Section Growth X2_15 Section Growth X2_16 Section Growth OCh-POH Frame 3 OJ3 Path Trace OC1 Signal Label OG2 Path Status OM2 Path BQI OK4 Path APS OK5 Path APS OK6 Path APS OD3 Path Data Com X3_9 Path Growth X3_10 Path Growth X3_11 Path Growth X3_12 Path Growth X3_13 Path Growth X3_14 Path Growth X3_15 Path Growth X3_16 Path Growth OCh-POH Frame 4 OB1_1 Path BIP-8 OB1_2 Path BIP-8 OB1_3 Path BIP-8 OB1_4 Path BIP-8 OB1_5 Path BIP-8 OB1_6 Path BIP-8 OB1_7 Path BIP-8 OB1_8 Path BIP-8 OB1_9 Path BIP-8 OB1_10 Path BIP-8 OB1_11 Path BIP-8 OB1_12 Path BIP-8 OB1_13 Path BIP-8 OB1_14 Path BIP-8 OB1_15 Path BIP-8 OB1_16 Path BIP-8

Subframe # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Figure 4. Digital Wrapper Multiframe Overhead Allocation The OA1/OA2 framing bytes are used by receivers to achieve frame and multiframe synchronization. The same bytes are used as for SONET/SDH, namely OA1 = 0xF6, and OA2 = 0x28. The definition of overhead bytes in frame 2 are the Section and Tandem Connection Overhead Bytes used by intermediate sites. The definition of overhead bytes in frames 3 and 4 are the Path Overhead bytes and are used by the optical channel termination sites. Each BIP-8 byte contains the BIP code for its corresponding subframe in the previous multiframe. E.g., the BIP-8 byte in subframe 1 is for the covered bytes of subframe 1 of all four frames of the previous multiframe. The BIP code is calculated over all of the payload bytes (columns 2-239) of the subframe, and the overhead bytes that are written only at optical channel termination (OCH POH frames 3 and 4). The OCh-SOH of frame 1, the OCh-SOH/TCOH of frame2, and FEC check bytes are not covered by the BIP code calculation. An OCh STE processes the OCh Section Overhead. The OCh passes the Tandem Connection Overhead (OCh-TCOH) and Path Overhead(OCh-POH). An OCh Tandem Connection terminating element processes the OCh Section Overhead(OCh SOH) and Tandem Connection Overhead (OCh-TCOH), and passes the Path Overhead(OCh-POH). An OCh PTE processes the OCh-SOH, OCh-TCOH, and the OCh-POH. Since the OCh-OH is included in the FEC calculation, any NE that writes OCh-OH must recalculate the FEC.

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6. FEC
The Forward Error Correction (FEC) code for the Digital Wrapper is the RS(255,239), a Reed-Solomon code over GF(28). The RS(255,239) is capable of correcting up to 8 errored symbols in a 255 symbol code word (1 symbol = 1 byte in this case). Each subframe of the Digital Wrapper frame is covered by its own RS(255,239) code. Note that all bytes of the subframe, including all overhead bytes, are processed. Since there are 16 subframes in a frame, this means 16 RS(255,239) syndrome calculations must be performed in parallel. This can be done by using a single RS(255,239) codec with 16 contexts, 16 RS(255,239) codecs with 1 context, or any combination thereof. On the receive side, calculating error words from syndromes can also be done by anywhere from 1 to 16 codecs depending on the time required to perform the calculation. There is a trade-off here with memory requirements for the frame as well, as the received frame must be stored until error correction is complete for all 16 subframes. Note that, unlike BIP codes, FEC bytes are transmitted in the same frame as the data they cover. Both the Digital Wrapper and SONET/SDH technologies propose using FEC based upon the BCH block codes. However, while the FEC codes have a common mathematical underpinning, the implementations of the BCH codes are very different. For SONET/SDH, the In-band FEC Group has proposed a shortened, systematic binary BCH code derived from a (8192, 8152) parent code which uses 39 check bits to support triple error correction. In contrast, the Digital Wrapper uses a non-binary (255,239) Reed-Solomon code.

Footnotes: GF is Galois Field BCH is Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem

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Copyright 2000 Vesta Corporation, All rights reserved This document is provided as is with no warranty expressed or implied References Considerations on FEC code, T1X1.5/2000-057, Jan 2000. Draft of In-Band FEC for SONET, T1X1.5/99-218R2, Oct. 1999 OCh Wrapper Format Considerations, T1X1.5/99-263, Oct. 1999 Optical Network Indicators Network Provider View, T1X1.5/99-071, April 1999 Proposal for Modified OCh Wrapper Format, T1X1.5/99-264, Oct 1999. Proposal for Automatically Switched Optical Channel Networks, T1X1.5/99-280, Oct 1999. Proposal for Providing Channel Associated Optical Channel Overhead in the OTN, T1X1.5/99-002, Jan 1999. Proposed Implementation for a Digital Wrapper for OCH Overhead, T1X1.5/99-003, Jan 1999. Proposed OCh-OH Assignment for the OCh Frame, T1X1.5/99-146, May 1999 Support for bit-rate and format transparency, T1X1.5/2000-067, Jan 2000. WaveWrapper Technology, Paul Bonenfant, Lucent Technologies, Inc.

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