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Optical Transport Networking: by Paul Littlewood With Earl Follis
Optical Transport Networking: by Paul Littlewood With Earl Follis
Optical
Transport
Networking
By
Paul Littlewood
with Earl Follis
Optical Transport Networking
Published by
Ciena
7035 Ridge Rd.
Hanover, MD 21076
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and may not be used without written permission.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at expertbooks@ciena.com
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Editorial, and Senior Project Editor: Erin Malone
Source Material: Barbara DePompa
Layout and Graphics: Kevin Brubaker, Clark Design, Axis41
Editor: Kim Lindros
Ciena’s
Expert
Series
Optical Transport
Networking
by Paul Littlewood
with Earl Follis
Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................... 5
OTN Values............................................................................................................................................ 13
OTN Architecture............................................................................................................................... 14
Use Cases.............................................................................................................................................. 31
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................. 33
Why Ciena?............................................................................................................................................ 34
Advantages of OTN
OTN offers a number of advantages over legacy transport networks, and this
guide details on these advantages in describing how they can be leveraged to
provide carriers and service providers with top- performance optical
networking, reduced costs and a broader service catalog. Benefits include:
When SONET/SDH was originally architected in the early 1990s, data and voice
networks were designed and built separately. But almost immediately, SONET/
SDH was being used to combine data and voice traffic onto a single transport
network, with data network elements adopting voice transport protocols and
interfaces. Adaptations were developed to map data traffic over SONET/SDH
frames so carriers could use SONET/SDH networks, but this proved
increasingly inefficient, because voice and data payloads are constructed at
5
significantly different rates. The industry learned that OTN must be designed
to provide data transport in a format native to data networking. This meant
fixed frame sizes instead of the fixed frame rates inherent in SONET/ SDH. This
fundamental change helps IP-based traffic to map into OTN much more
efficiently than SONET/SDH. This tight integration of Internet Protocol (IP) and
OTN via Ethernet is much more appropriate to the modern mix of networking
protocols and traffic. The 40 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) line rate cap of
SONET/SDH is no longer a barrier to data rate increases.
6
INTRODUCTION: OTN FUNDAMENTALS
Although it’s now common to link OTN and Ethernet technologies, OTN was
not originally created to work specifically with Ethernet. In fact, OTN was
developed to manage Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) wavelengths
with SONET/SDH as the client payload, given the wide deployment of SONET/
7
SDH at the time. OTN was also intended to support a manageable wholesaled
wavelength infrastructure. It is this original use case from which the capability
of full payload transparency originated. By 2009, it was clear that the majority
of traffic carried by OTN would be Ethernet-based, so OTN standards were
enhanced to closely align with Ethernet traffic characteristics.
In the 2009 update, G.709 was enhanced to more tightly integrate with
Ethernet data rates and packet formats. As a result, OTN and Ethernet are now
inseparable in most networks. This symbiotic relationship makes OTN the ideal
protocol for transport of Ethernet over Dense Wavelength Division
Multiplexing (DWDM) networks.
Industry observers anticipate strong OTN growth in the next few years.
According to Infonetics Research,1 a respected analyst firm in the
telecommunications industry, the OTN market was approximately $8 billion
in 2013 and is expected to grow to $13 billion by 2017. That’s a 13 percent
compound annual growth rate—faster than the projected growth in the
general optical networking market. Infonetics further expects OTN switching
to eventually become a de facto standard for WDM networks: 89 percent of
carriers surveyed have implemented or intend to implement OTN switching
by 2016.
1
Infonetics Research, OTN and Packet-Optical Hardware - Biannual Worldwide Market
Share, Size, and Forecasts, March 2014
8
WHAT MAKES OTN ESSENTIAL?
OTN offers specific benefits in backbone and metro core networks, thanks to
the complementary nature of IP and OTN. OTN-based IP backbones and metro
cores offer significant advantages over traditional WDM-based networks,
including increased efficiency, reliability around 99.999 percent, and
wavelength–based private services. The combination of IP over OTN also
offers better management and monitoring, reduced hops, protection of
services, and reduced costs for equipment acquisition. In addition to scaling
the network to 100G and beyond, OTN plays a key role in making the network
an open and programmable platform, making it possible for transport to
become as important as computing and storage in intelligent data center
networking.
OTN wraps each client payload transparently into a container for transport
across optical networks, preserving the client’s native structure, timing
information, and management information. This means that any client, storage
device, mainframe, digital video, Ethernet, SONET/SDH, OTN, wavelength,
full-rate 10GbE, and more can be mapped onto an OTN wavelength.
9
This technological adaptability makes OTN a fitting platform upon which
organizations modernize their networks. By supporting legacy technologies
such as SONET or SDH running concurrently with other clients on the same
network infrastructure, organizations can gracefully transition to OTN in
phases, without requiring wholesale replacement of the underlying optical
network infrastructure.
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transferred between nodes over OTN-channelized links. And because
OTN-switched networks keep all applications and tenants separate,
organizations can effectively stop hackers who access one part of the
network from gaining access to other parts of the network.
• Robust yet simple operations: OTN network management data is
carried on a separate channel, completely isolated from user
application data. This means OTN network settings are much more
difficult to access and modify by gaining admittance through a client
interface port.
11
SONET/SDH containers (STS-1/VC-4). VCAT provides for greater flexibility,
enabling SONET/SDH containers to be transported or routed independently.
After nearly 25 years since the introduction of SONET and SDH, the evolution
of SONET and SDH standards has ceased, and the majority of SONET/SDH
equipment is reaching its planned end of life. Considering the limited future
usefulness of SONET and SDH hardware, most optical networking vendors
have ceased major platform investments in SONET/SDH products. Support
contracts between service providers and equipment vendors are becoming
difficult to renew because many component parts have been discontinued by
the manufacturers. Moreover, SONET/SDH is increasingly cumbersome. Client
line rates continue to rise while technical limitations in the SONET/SDH
standards have capped network capacity at 40 Gb/s (OC-768/STM-256).
Although OTN and SONET/SDH have similarities, there are also some
significant design differences (see Table 1). Perhaps the biggest difference is
that SONET was defined with fixed frame rates, while OTN was defined with
fixed frame sizes.
12
Table 1: Comparison of SONET and OTN
OTN SONET/SDH
Asynchronous mapping of payloads Synchronous mapping of payloads
Timing distribution not required Requires tight timing distribution
across networks
Designed to operate on multiple Designed to operate on multiple
wavelengths (DWDM) wavelengths
Scales to 100 Gb/s (and beyond) Scales to a maximum of 40 Gb/s
Performs single-stage multiplexing Performs multi-stage multiplexing
Uses a variable frame size and Uses a fixed frame rate for a given
increases the frame size as client line rate and increases frame size (or
size increases uses concatenation of multiple
frames) as client size increases
FEC sized for error correction to Not applicable (no standardized FEC)
correct 16 blocks per frame
The G.709 standard defines client payload encapsulation, OAM overhead, FEC,
and a multiplexing hierarchy. These functions deliver optical transport
capabilities as robust and manageable as SONET/SDH, but with greater suitability
for current traffic demands, and data center interconnection circuits in particular.
OTN is asynchronous and thus does not require the complex and costly timing
distribution and verification of SONET/SDH. Instead, OTN includes per-service
timing adjustments to carry both asynchronous (GbE, ESCON) and
synchronous (OC-3/12/48, STM-1/4/16, SDI) services. OTN can additionally
multiplex these services into a common wavelength.
Like SONET/SDH, OTN also offers comprehensive OAM, but with standardized
FEC. OAM is used to efficiently manage network resources and services. FEC
enables service providers to extend the distance between optical repeaters,
reducing expenses and simplifying network operations.
OTN VALUES
There are practical and technical drivers behind customer migrations from
SONET/SDH to OTN. OTN is the logical choice for a next-generation optical
13
network that offers 100 Gb/s speeds today, while maintaining support for
legacy SONET/SDH devices during the transition period. Other technical
advantages of OTN include:
OTN ARCHITECTURE
The Optical channel Payload Unit (OPU) contains the payload frames. The
‘service layer’ represents the end-user services such as GbE, SONET, SDH, FC,
or any other protocol. For transparently mapped services such as ESCON,
GbE, or FC, the service is passed through a Generic Framing Procedure (GFP)
mapper.
The Optical channel Data Unit (ODUk, where k = 1/2/2e/3/3e2/4) contains the
OPU plus overhead such as BIP8, GCC1, TCM, and so on. The Optical
Transport Unit (OTUk, where k = 1/2/2e/3/3e2/4) contains the ODU, provides
14
OTN Values in a Nutshell
15
For Client Service Mapping
For Transmission
An Optical Multiplex Section (OMS) sits between two devices and can
multiplex wavelengths onto a fiber, as shown in Figure 2. An Optical
Transmission Section (OTS) consists of the fiber between anything that
performs an optical function on the signal. An Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier
(EDFA) counts as ‘line amplifying’ equipment. OTN offers six levels of tandem
connection monitoring that enable a network operator to monitor a signal as
it passes through other operators’ networks. This functional breakdown aids
in fault management, as OTN overhead is rigorously aligned with these
points.
16
OCH
OMS
fiber
WDM
OTS OTS OTS Mux/Demux
SONET/SDH
10GbE
SONET/SDH
10GbE
Video
1GbE Video
1GbE
17
A cornerstone of OTN is transparency. Transparent payloads, a transparent
multiplex hierarchy, and transparent timing are all inherent OTN features. OTN’s
transparency enables the transport of any service without interfering with the
client payload, OAM, or timing. This is important when offering wholesale
services for third-party providers and for connecting equipment that may
utilize the client OAM for overhead communications. Note that OTN is a single
global standard adopted without modification worldwide.
OTN rates are equal to or higher than the bit rates of the client traffic. There are
basically two types of mappings into an ODU: transparent and non-
transparent. Transparent maps the complete client payload into an ODU (so
the OTN rate is higher than the client rate), whereas non-transparent mapping
removes some of the client signal overhead to conserve network capacity.
More ODUs can be mapped into an OTU using this mapping strategy. Some
key OTN line rates defined by the G.709 standard are listed in Table 2, and
Table 3 lists the standardized ODUk rates of G.709. Additional rates are in
development in the ITU for more clients and faster lines.
18
Table 3: Standard ODUk Rates
19
Encapsulation
Container
~1.25Gb/s Line
1GbE ODU0 Container
~2.7Gb/s
ODU1
OC-48/ OTU1
ODU1
STM-16
ODUflex: an interger number of tributary slots of an
Any bit rate ODUflex OPUk (OPU2, OPU3, OPU4)
~10.7Gb/s
ODU2
10G, 10GbE OTU2
WAN PHY ODU2
~11.1Gb/s
10GbE LAN ODU2e OTU2e
PHY
~43.0Gb/s
ODU3
40G ODU3 OTU3
ODU4 ~111.8Gb/s
~104Gb/s OTU4
100G ODU4
OTN supports single- and multi-step multiplexing into higher containers at the
ODU level, as depicted in Figure 4, which shows an abridged hierarchical view.
For example, four ODU1s can be multiplexed into an OPU2. An OPU3 can
contain a multiplexing of four ODU2s, 16 ODU1s, or a mixture of ODU1s and
ODU2s. Figure 4 also shows that OTN supports both Low Order (LO) and High
Order (HO) mapping. LO is used when a client signal does not need further
aggregation within the optical carrier (wavelength), and HO is used when
sub-wavelength grooming and/or multiplexing is required. Note that 10G refers
to a line rate, regardless of the type of traffic being transported, while 10GbE
refers to Ethernet traffic operating at 10Gb/s.
One of the key advantages of OTN is its support of FEC in the OTU frame,
which is standardized in ITU G.975. This overhead is added to the last part of
the frame before it gets scrambled for transmission. FEC has proved to be
efficient in correcting a very high number of errors in transmission due to noise
20
or other impairments present in high-capacity transmissions. The standard
FEC uses a Reed-Solomon RS (255/239) coding technique, in which 239 bytes
are required to compute a 16-byte parity check. Allowing service providers to
extend the distance between optical repeaters, FEC helps reduce both capital
and operational expenses while simplifying the network topography by being
able to skip amplifier sites.
Service routing –
Routing
Sub-lambda bandwidth
Switching
21
TRANSFORMING NETWORK ECONOMICS WITH OTN
The key capabilities OTN delivers can be used to reshape the economics of
high-capacity networks. Some significant use cases and applications of OTN
are described as follows:
Increasingly, customers are buying services such as 10GbE private lines, which
are clearly less than the capacity of 100 Gb/s lines. These services have been
typically fulfilled using transponders or muxponders connected to a dedicated
optical line using a single wavelength or multiple wavelengths. Muxponders are
deployed on a service-pair (demand-pair) basis, as shown in Figure 6.
22
Back-to-back transponders
Because the optical lines are dedicated, the service is inflexible and results in
underutilized hardware and stranded bandwidth. These hard-wired
connections are extremely labor-intensive for engineering and operations, and
often require truck rolls for maintenance or circuit changes.
23
1400 Point-to-Point OTN Aggregation/
muxponders Switching
1200
40%
Deployed Wavelengths
1000 reduction
100G
800
40G
600 10G
400
200
Recovered 40%
of the bandwidth
Fragmented Defragmented
Bandwidth Bandwidth
24
Figure 9: Tandem Connection Monitoring (TCM) Provides Management Visibility at
Multiple (Nested) Levels
Packet Aggregation
(with or without over-subscription)
OTN Core
Lossless Core
(with dedicated OTN links)
Packet Aggregation
(with or without over-subscription)
25
sufficient fill is achieved, traffic is mapped to OTN and carried across
the core to its destination at the lowest possible cost.
• Network modernization: OTN is recognized by a majority of carriers
as the evolutionary path for their SONET/SDH networks. OTN provides
SONET/SDH access to 100 Gb/s lines and acts as a gateway for
legacy transport networks. By selectively upgrading or capping and
growing, service providers can evolve their networks over multiple
stages to avoid any disruption to core services. An example evolution
from inefficient ring interconnect to mesh overlay to intelligent mesh
is shown in Figure 11.
• Core IP router express connection: Many operators are already
aware of the much higher cost of switching traffic on a router as
compared to an OTN or Ethernet switch. The extra cost is attributed to
the additional sophistication of router traffic processing and its
management and operations complexity. Because IP traffic is packet-
based, many operators believe Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)
routers are necessary everywhere in the network, regardless of traffic
patterns. OTN allows the offload of transit IP traffic from core routers,
thus reducing the number of router ports and overall network cost.
This offloading of transit IP can also help providers delay capacity
upgrades. Customer case studies have shown capital cost reductions
of 20 to 60 percent, achieving cash-flow breakeven within nine
months. OTN also lowers Ethernet service delivery costs through
expressing traffic around edge routers while enhancing service
performance and network availability.
Step 1
Baseline Step 2
OTN
Mesh
OTN mesh
Inefficient ring overlay for Add new
Improve space Evolution to
interconnect high-capicity and power footprint OADM OTN/Packet-enabled
circuits location intelligent mesh
*End of Life/Manufacturer Discontinued equipment
26
CONTROL PLANE COMPATIBILITY AND FEATURES
An intelligent mesh solution can reduce service provisioning time from months
to less than an hour. A control plane also makes the network much more
resilient by handling multiple simultaneous failures, which can raise network
availability to the level of six-9’s (99.9999 percent).
Some of the key capabilities of the control plane are described as follows:
27
Figure 12: Increase Network Survivability with OTN and Control Plane
28
Cloud
Applications
and Services
ᅚ the network
“Client-Server”
becomes dynamic Interaction
pool of resources
Intelligent Network
Figure 13: OTN and Control Plane as a Dynamic Pool of Resources for the Cloud
Service Provider’s
Infrastructure
29
to support mission-critical applications for a variety of packet and
storage protocols. The Enterprise B partition may be established to
support cloud services in which customers can schedule large data
transfers required for storage mobility or virtual machine migrations.
Despite O-VPNs being offered across a service provider’s network,
they provide dedicated bandwidth to connect multiple end-user sites
in a mesh configuration with multiple parallel line rates available, while
maintaining full separation of user traffic and restoration bandwidth.
Full visibility of the network and optional control over provisioning,
protection, and bandwidth- on-demand may also be provided using a
secure, Web-based customer portal.
OTN has been deployed into networks with increasing scope since its inception
in 1998. Hundreds of thousands of OTN ports have been deployed and are now
carrying mission-critical traffic across a wide spectrum of applications.
In March 2014, Infonetics Research published a report titled OTN and Packet-
Optical Hardware - Biannual Worldwide Market Share, Size, and Forecasts, in
which 21 optical networking decision-makers were surveyed about their use of
and plans for OTN. It is important to note that the respondent service
providers represented 34 percent of the world’s telecom Capital Expenditures
(CAPEX). The results presented in the Infonetics report underscore the fact
that OTN is indeed gaining market adoption. Some highlights of this survey
include:
30
• 3X North American spending on OTN switching 1H12 to 1H13
• First wavelength (40G/100G) efficiency is one of the key applications
for OTN switching
USE CASES
Real deployment scenarios and numerous network studies have quantified the
benefits of deploying OTN for transport and switching. The customer use
cases included here highlight those benefits.
This example took place on the national backbone of a Tier 1 service provider
in the United States. Traffic consisted of a mix of 10G wavelengths, including
OC-192 and 10GbE serving wholesale and retail private lines with
approximately 3,000 10G circuits. An architectural comparison was made
between using point-to-point muxponders only versus muxponders plus a
switched OTN core for sub-wavelength grooming. The results revealed a
32-percent reduction in the number of deployed ‘lit’ wavelengths and
13-percent reduction in deployed capacity.
31
efficient routes, reducing average path latency, recovering optical spectrum by
grooming onto higher bit-rate wavelengths, and rebalancing traffic to avoid
congestion. Key benefits realized include:
This example compares the CAPEX required for IP router interconnect over
three different scenarios: IP over DWDM, IP over DWDM with some wavelength
expressing between traffic-heavy nodes, and sub- wavelength
interconnection using OTN switching. The study was performed on a 28-node
network with a total of 47 links. The scenario with sub-wavelength
interconnection using OTN proved to preserve 10G interconnect and topology
with ODU2 virtual wavelengths, allowing for greater router capacity offload, in
addition to extending the life of existing router port cards. This led to a
50-percent reduction in router CAPEX.
The mesh topology of OTN and native support for IP/Ethernet traffic increases
network efficiency, simplifies network architectures, and reduces latency. By
supporting multiple service line rates on one common network, OTN provides
32
a clear upgrade path for service providers who need their network
infrastructure to easily scale along with their customers’ service requirements.
To that end, OTN networks are designed to simultaneously support services
with a variety of line rates from 1G to 10G to 40G and beyond. As a result, when
a customer requests an increase in their contracted line rate, that rise can be
implemented with just a few changes to the service provider’s network
configuration, typically requiring no upgrade to network hardware, software, or
applications. OTN-based providers can also allow for automated, dynamic
expansion and contraction of line rates based on customer utilization or
specific customer requests.
CONCLUSION
33
• Scalability to 100 Gb/s and beyond
• Increased network survivability
• The ability to underpin the delivery of emerging high-capacity services
For most organizations today, the goal is to lower costs and streamline
network operations. Organizations are simultaneously seeking a solution that
will set a new benchmark in service economics and turn the network into a
dynamic and intelligent pool of resources. OTN offers a deterministic and
simple service delivery model that complements packet networks and paves
the way for an entirely new generation of services—one that is likely to
reshape the way people communicate.
WHY CIENA?
Ciena’s OneConnect intelligent control plane, provides a proven track record, it is:
34
Ciena’s Converged Packet Optical Portfolio includes:
Ciena’s OTN solutions deliver the most economical and optimized network for
transport enterprise application traffic. Ciena’s solutions give enterprises the
flexibility to tunnel Ethernet and data center protocols directly through the
intelligent OTN core, optimizing any investment in routing interfaces,
eliminating router hops, and minimizing latency. And Ciena’s approach enables
delivery of connection-oriented Ethernet that ensures consistent, high-
throughput, low-latency data delivery. Based on key capabilities, including
programmability and automated management, Ciena’s approach to optical
networking offers low- cost implementation and operation of OTN networks,
providing the scalability and flexibility to serve as adaptable foundations for
enterprise networks for years to come.
35
OTN GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
36
OAM: Operations, Administration, and Maintenance
37
Paul Littlewood
Principal, Network Architecture
Office of the CTO
Paul Littlewood is a principal engineer in the CTO team at Ciena. His current areas
of interest include network architecture evolution, metro network design, and
multilayer networking.
During his career, Paul has led product management and engineering teams in
optical transport and digital cross-connect projects, and was also a leader in the
definition and development of Carrier Ethernet technologies, including Resilient
Packet Rings.
Paul has seven patents granted and has written a number of papers on optical
networking. He has an honors degree in pure physics from the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne in Great Britain
38
39
“This book is a MUST read for anyone interested in
evolving networks. With their in-depth knowledge of OTN,
Paul Littlewood has created a powerful resource on the
value of OTN.”
Are you struggling to ‘make-do’ with current legacy networks? Are you
squeezing as much as you can from the waning fortunes of SONET/
SDH technologies?