Ethernet over SONET

Basics of SONET
Synchronous optical network (SONET) is a standard for optical telecommunications transport. It was formulated
by the ECSA for ANSI, which sets industry standards in the United States for telecommunications and other
industries.
SONET defines a technology for carrying many signals of different capacities through a synchronous, flexible,
optical hierarchy. This is accomplished by means of a byte-interleaved multiplexing scheme. Byte-interleaving
simplifies multiplexing and offers end-to-end network management.
The first step in the SONET multiplexing process involves the generation of the lowest level or base signal. In
SONET, this base signal is referred to as synchronous transport signal–level 1, or simply STS–1, which operates
at 51.84 Mbps. Higher-level signals are integer multiples of STS–1, creating the family of STS–N signals. An
STS–N signal is composed of N byte-interleaved STS–1 signals.

Ethernet over Sonet (EoS)

When Ethernet port speeds are referred to as 100 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s, these rates refer to the medium access control
(MAC) sublayer signaling rates. Due to physical layer block encoding (e.g., 4B/5B for 100Base-TX or 8B/10B
encoding for 1000Base-X), the resulting physical layer speeds are 125 Mb/s and 1.25 Gb/s respectively. The
standard time-division multiplexed (TDM) rates SONET systems transport are payload capacities of 1.536 Mb/s
(DS1), 1.600 Mb/s (VT1.5), 44.210 Mb/s (DS3), 48.384 Mb/s (STS-1),149.76 Mb/s (STS-3c), 599.04 Mb/s
(STS-12c), 2396.16 Mb/s (STS-48c), and 9584.64 Mb/s (STS-192c). As observed, Ethernet physical layer rates
are different from the TDM rates.
EoS represents a group of industry standard specifications for optimal transport of Ethernet through
SONET/SDH. Ethernet and SONET/SDH are the two primary link technologies used in the network
communications while Ethernet in the LAN and SONET/SDH in the Telco/PTT WAN. However, Ethernet rates
do not match SONET/SDH rates and Ethernet traffic can not be effectively carried over the SONET/SDH
network directly. Ethernet over SONET/SDH (EoS) technologies address this problem and turn the Sonet/SDH
MAN/WAN infrastructure backbone into a transparent Ethernet segment for attached servers and clients. Packet
over SONET/SDH (PoS), the traditional transmission of IP data over Sonet frames via PPP, is gradually replaced
by EoS in many cases.
EoS specifications account for the mapping, aligning, bandwidth management, sequencing and delay
compensation of the individual channels. The core technologies in the EoS architectures are the encapsulation
schemes to match Ethernet and SONET/SDH rates effectively and manage bandwidth usage. Currently, there are
a few encapsulation techniques used: virtual concatenation (VC) and the link capacity adjustment scheme
(LCAS) techniques, the generic framing procedure (GFP) and link access procedure for SDH (LAPS)
techniques.
Virtual Concatenation (VC): Virtual concatenation is considered the primary enhancement to voice optimized
SONET/SDH, in order to support the transport of variable bit data streams.
The Virtual Concatenation is specified in ITU-T Recommendations G.707 (2007) and G.783 (2006).VC allows
for non-standard SONET/SDH multiplexing in order to address the bandwidth mismatch problem between
Ethernet and SONET/SDH. The primary drivers behind Virtual Concatenation include scalability, efficiency,
compatibility and resiliency. The popularity of this methodology is due to the real benefits afforded both network
providers and end users. Using virtual concatenation, the SONET/SDH transport pipes may be “right-sized” for
Ethernet transport. Virtual Concatenation allows SONET channels to be multiplexed together in arbitrary
arrangements, which permits custom-sized SONET pipes to be created that are any multiple of the basic rates.
Virtual concatenation is valid for STS-1 rates as well as for Virtual Tributary (VT) rates. Several Virtual
Tributaries, form part of a Virtual Concatenation Group (VCG). The pragmatic use of spawning Virtual
Tributaries to transport data across a VC enabled network is the fact that in many cases, particularly when the
underlying network is relatively congested, then splitting the traffic over several distinct paths allows us to
provide lower cost solutions than if we had to find just one path that meets the required capacity. Chances are
this splitting of paths will also allow us to find shorter paths to channel our traffic across. VC supports both high-
order paths and low-order tributary paths.
Virtual Concatenation Payload Capacities
Container (Sonet/SDH) Type Payload Capacity (Mbit/s)
VT1.5 Xv/VC 11 Xv Low Order X x 1.600 (X=1.64)
VT2 Xv/VC 12 Xv Low Order X x 2.176 (X = 1.64)
High
STS-1-Xv/VC 3-Xv X x 48.384 (X = 1.256)
Order
High
STS-3-Xv/VC 4-Xv X x 149.76 (X = 1.256)
Order

• High-Order VC
Each path within a group is approximately 51 Mbit/s (STS1/VC3) or 155 Mbit/s (STS3c/VC4). Bandwidth is
allocated using the H4 byte within the path overhead and in multiples of 51 Mbit/s and therefore high-order VC
can be used to provision sub-rate traffic across Gigabit Ethernet. This makes high-order VC ideal for the metro
application.
• Low-Order VC
Each path within a group is approximately 1.5 Mbit/s (VT1.5/VC11) or 2 Mbit/s (VT2/VC12). Bandwidth is
allocated using the Z7/K4 byte within the path overhead and in 2-Mbit/s chunks and therefore low-order VC can
be used to provision sub-rate traffic across 10/100-Mbit/s Ethernet used in the access network.
All the intelligence to handle virtual concatenation is located at the endpoints of the connections, so each
SONET channel may be routed independently through the network without it requiring any knowledge of the
virtual concatenation. In this manner, virtually concatenated channels may be deployed on the existing
SONET/SDH network with a simple endpoint upgrade. All the equipment currently in the center of the network
need not be aware of the virtual concatenation.
Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS): A supporting technology to the Virtual Concatenation, LCAS
dynamically changes the amount a bandwidth used for a virtual concatenated channel and provides “tuning” of
the allocated bandwidth depends on customer needs. LCAS is also useful for fault tolerance and protection since
the protocol has the ability to remove failed links from the Virtually Concatenated Group (VCG). Using Link
Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS), signaling messages are exchanged within the SONET overhead in order
to change the number of tributaries being used by a VCG. The number of tributaries may be either reduced or
increased, and the resulting bandwidth change may be applied without loss of data in the absence of network
errors.
Within LCAS, a control packet is defined that carries the following fields:
• Member status (MST)
• Re-sequence acknowledge (RS-Ack)
• Control (CTRL)
• Group ID (GID)
• CRC-3/CRC-8 (3 for LO, 8 for HO)

Link Access Procedure for SDH (LAPS): A type of high-level data link controller (HDLC), LAPS includes
data link service and protocol specification used in transporting IP packets over SDH networks. LAPS provides a
point-to-point unacknowledged connectionless service over SONET/SDH. LAPS enables the encapsulation of
IPv6, IPv4, PPP, and other higher-layer protocols.
Generic Framing Procedure (GFP): another key encapsulation scheme in EoS and more robust technology
than LAPS, GFP maps Ethernet packet data into an octet-synchronous transport such as SONET. GFP has
adapted the cell delineation protocol used by ATM to encapsulate variable length packets. A fixed amount of
overhead is required by the GFP encapsulation that is independent of the contents of the packets. In contrast to
HDLC whose overhead is data dependent, the fixed amount of overhead per packet allows deterministic
matching of bandwidth between the Ethernet stream and the virtually concatenated SONET stream. Within GFP,
there are two different mapping modes defined: frame based mapping and transparent mapping. Each mode is
optimized for providing different services.
There are two modes of GFP: Generic Framing Procedure - Framed (GFP-F) and Generic Framing Procedure -
Transparent (GFP-T):
• GFP-F maps each client frame into a single GFP frame.GFP-F is used where the client signal is framed
or packetized by the client protocol. It is a direct replacement for HDLC. It has defined parameters for
mapping all flavors of Ethernet, including 10/100, Gigabit, and 10-Gigabit Ethernet, as well as Point-to-
Point Protocol (PPP) and RPR. It is optimized for bandwidth efficiency at the expense of latency. It
encapsulates complete Ethernet (or other types of) frames with a GFP header.
• GFP-T, on the other hand, allows mapping of multiple 8B/10B block-coded client data streams into an
efficient 64B/65B block code for transport within a GFP frame. It has been defined to provide generic
protocol mapping onto Sonet/SDH and OTN. Transparent GFP is used to map storage protocols such as
Fibre Channel, ESCON, and FiCON, as well as other protocols such as Digital Video Broadcast (DVB).
A GFP frame consists of:
• a core header
• a payload header
• an optional extension header
• a GFP payload an optional payload frame check sequence (FCS).
As discussed earlier, a major application of GFP and VC is to support the mapping of sub-rate Ethernet
services. In many cases, metro customers do not require a full gigabit of bandwidth but may require 50-, 100-, or
200-Mbit/s. By using GFP, VC, and LCAS combined with some policing, multiple Gigabit Ethernet links can be
aggregated onto a single OC48 pipe, as shown in Figure
Figure:Ethernet Aggregation Example
A service supporting bandwidths between 50 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s is provisioned over each Gigabit Ethernet link.
If a customer requires an increase in bandwidth of 100 Mbit/s or 200 Mbit/s, this can be provisioned without
changing the underlying equipment.
A similar approach can be taken in the access network to provision bandwidth across Ethernet and Fast Ethernet,
using low-order VC.
Several devices in the Table include either 10/100-Mbit/s, Gigabit, or 10-Gigabit Ethernet MACs. The
Transwitch EtherMap-48 is unique, as it includes four Gigabit Ethernet MACs and the buffering to multiplex
traffic from the four gigabit links onto a single 2.5-Gbit/s Sonet/SDH line.
A further development in the access market will be the aggregation of 10/100-Mbit/s Ethernet over Gigabit
Ethernet and then onto the Sonet/SDH network.
Conclusion
LCAS along with VC enable carriers to optimize their existing networks, and offer new services
with a minimal investment by leveraging their existing infrastructure. These new services will be
based on the simplicity and efficiency of Ethernet along with the reliability and scalability of
SONET/SDH to complement or replace legacy technologies, generate new revenue streams and
profitability while offering high-value services, reduce CAPEX, and extend the lifespan of the
existing infrastructure. For GFP, the throughput is maintained at a high rate by use of a robust delineation
mechanism and by the deterministic, non-inflationary encapsulation and also the error detection capability is not
degraded.
Using GFP in EoS application makes SONET both versatile and flexible, while the combination of
LCAS and Virtual Concatenation make it elastic. Since the main motivation of GFP, LCAS and Virtual
Concatenation is to reduce operating costs and maximize network utilization, Ethernet over SONET networks
based on these technologies is emerging and growing rapidly.

References
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