UNIT - II

SONET-SDH

UNIT II SONET-SDH

Fiber networks evolution as SONET/SDH

Multiplexing - SONET/SDH Layers -SONET
Frame Structure -SONET/SDH Physical LayerElements of a SONET/SDH Infrastructure Network Survivability - Basic Concepts Protection in SONET/SDH - Point-to-Point SelfHealing Rings -Unidirectional Path-Switched
Rings - Bidirectional Line-Switched Rings.

NETWORK BASICS

Types
Topologies
Characteristics
Services
Techniques

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
Basic Blocks

Three basic components

Source and Transmitter

Destinations and Receiver
Communication channel
(medium)

Communication channel

Coverage and Topology

Wired
Wireless
Glass
Water and or materials

Coverage (public
network)

LAN
MAN
WAN

Topology

Bus
Ring
Mesh
Star

CHANGING SERVICE LANDSCAPE

Network characteristics
Full redundancy
Fast restoration
High availability (99.999 %)
Low latency
High bandwidth
Dynamic allocation and high bandwidth efficiency
Support various services

More providers and equipment builders (due to

Deregulation of the telecom industry)
Providers are expected to provide more services at
higher capacity at lower prices!

A positive feedback business model!

Need for high capacity network
More users

SERVICE TYPES

Two basic service types (switching technologies)

Connection-oriented
Connectionless

Connection-oriented
Based on circuit switching (setup, connect, teardown)
Example: Public Switching Telephone Network
(PSTN)
Originally only supported voice
Not good for bursty traffic

Connectionless
Based on sending datagrams
Examples: Packet, massage, burst switching
Improves bandwidth and network utilization

MULTIPLEXING

Transmitting several signals over a single communications

channel
Multiplexing technologies
Frequency Division Multiplexing (modulating data into
different carrier frequencies)
Wavelength Division Multiplexing
Time division Multiplexing (dividing available time among
various signals)
Statistical Multiplexing (dynamic allocation of time spaces
depending on the traffic pattern)

Statistical Multiplexing
Requires buffering resulting in variable delay

Many packets will have to be buffered

Packets will have to be delayed
Some packets may be lost
Guarantee of Service (QoS)

OPTICAL FIBER

Allowing transmission of information using pulses of

light

Advantages
High bandwidth
Low noise
Low interference (electromagnetic)

Optical fiber installation

Measured in fiber sheath-miles (or fiber miles)
Example: we install 3 fiber cable within 10 mile long
route; each fiber cable has 20 fibers we have 600 fiber
miles 30 cables
Currently more than 1.5 billion kilometers of optical fiber
is deployed around the world [1]

The circumference of earth is 40,000 Km!

[1] http://www.corning.com/opticalfiber/innovation/futureoffiber/index.aspx

THE PSTN CIRCA 1900

pair of copper wires

local loop

manual routing at local exchange office (CO)

Analog voltage travels over copper wire end-to-end

Voice signal arrives at destination severely attenuated and distorted

Routing performed manually at exchanges office(s)

Routing is expensive and lengthy operation
Route is maintained for duration of call

TELEPHONY MULTIPLEXING
1900: 25% of telephony revenues went to copper
mines

standard was 18 gauge, long distance even heavier

two wires per loop to combat cross-talk
needed method to place multiple conversations on a single
trunk

1918: Carrier system (FDM)

5 conversations on single trunk

later extended to 12 (group)
still later supergroups (60), master groups (60)),

channels

4 kHz

8 kHz

12 kHz

16 kHz

20 kHz

THE DIGITALIZATION OF THE PSTN

Shannon (Bell Labs) proved that

Digital communications
is always better than
Analog communications
and the PSTN became digital
Better means
More efficient use of resources (e.g. more channels on trunks)
Higher voice quality (less noise, less distortion)
Added features
After the invention of the transistor, in 1963 T-carrier system (TDM)
1 byte per sample 8000 samples per second
timeslots
T1 = 24 conversations per trunk
2 groups per cable!

AND SWITCHING BECAME EASIER TOO

Analog Crossbar switch
1

Digital Cross-connect (DXC)

7

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

8
1

processor
2

Complexity increases rapidly with

size

OPTIMIZED TELEPHONY ROUTING

Circuit switching (route is maintained for duration of call)

Route set-up is an expensive operation, just as it was for manual switching
Today, complex least cost routing algorithms are used
Call duration consists of set-up, voice and tear-down phases

THE PSTN CIRCA 1960

trunks
circuits

local loop
subscriber line

automatic routing through universal telephone network

Analog voltages used throughout, but extensive Frequency Division Multiplexing

Voice signal arrives at destination after amplification and filtering to 4 KHz
Automatic routing
Universal dial-tone
Voltage and tone signaling
Circuit switching (route is maintained for duration of call)

THE PRESENT PSTN

tandem switch
last mile
subscriber line
class 5 switch

PSTN Network
class 5 switch

Analog voltages and copper wire used only in last mile,

but core designed to mimic original situation
Voice signal filtered to 4 KHz at input to digital network

Time Division Multiplexing of digital signals in the network

Extensive use of fiber optic and wireless physical links
T1/E1, PDH and SONET/SDH synchronous protocols
Signaling can be channel/trunk associated or via separate network (SS7)
Automatic routing
Circuit switching (route is maintained for duration of call)
Complex routing optimization algorithms (LP, Karmarkar, etc)

EVOLUTION OF OPTICAL NETWORKS

FIRST GENERATION
Started in 1980
Limited to fiber optic transmission systems the
rest of the system was electrical

Thus, the electronic was the major bottleneck!

The received optical data had to be dropped and then
transmitted this was a point-to-point system
Example: Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)
and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Fiber Channel
These systems where based on Optical TDM (10Gb/s
and 40Gb/s)
Higher capacity systems were build using WDM
technology (1 Tb/s) remember a single phone line is
only 60 Kb/s!)

EVOLUTION OF OPTICAL NETWORKS

SECOND GENERATION WADM

Incoming optical signals could be

switched in optical domain (optical
switching)

Underlying technologies included

No longer limited to point-to-point

Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (OADM)
Optical crossconnets (OXC)
Optical line terminals (OLT)
Wavelength Add/Drop Multiplexer
(WADM)
Dense WDM (DWDM)

Examples

FTTH, FTTC, ROADM

OXC

EVOLUTION OF OPTICAL NETWORKS

THIRD GENERATION
All optical packet switching
All packets are processed in optical domain

Transparent to the service

Handle any arbitrary bit rate

Underlying technologies

Optical buffering!
Fast switching
So far, no optical networks have been available!

COMPARING CLOCKS

A clock is said to be isochronous (isos=equal, chronos=time)

if its ticks are equally spaced in time
2 clocks are said to be synchronous (syn=same chronos=time)
if they tick in time, i.e. have precisely the same frequency
2 clocks are said to be plesiochronous (plesio=near chronos=time)

if they are nominally if the same frequency

but are not locked

PDH PRINCIPLE
If we want yet higher rates, we can mux together TDM signals
(tributaries)
We could demux the TDM timeslots and directly remux them
but that is too complex
The TDM inputs are already digital, so we must

insist that the mux provide clock to all tributaries

(not always possible, may already be locked to a network)

OR

somehow transport tributary with its own clock

across a higher speed network with a different clock
(without spoiling remote clock recovery)

PDH HIERARCHIES
level

64 kbps
*

E1 2.048 Mbps
*

2
3

E3

E4 139.264 Mbps
CEPT

24

T1 1.544 Mbps
*

T2 6.312 Mbps

34.368 Mbps
*

E2 8.448 Mbps
*

30

T3

44.736 Mbps
*

T4 274.176 Mbps
N.A.

24
J1 1.544 Mbps
*

J2 6.312 Mbps
*

J3 32.064 Mbps
*

J4 97.728 Mbps
Japan

FRAMING AND OVERHEAD

In addition to locking on to bit-rate
we need to recognize the frame structure
We identify frames by adding Frame Alignment Signal
The FAS is part of the frame overhead (which also includes "C-bits", OAM, etc.)
Each layer in PDH hierarchy adds its own overhead
For example

E1 2 overhead bytes per 32 bytes overhead 6.25 %

E2 4 E1s = 8.192 Mbps out of 8.448Mbps
so there is an additional 0.256 Mbps = 3 %
altogether 4*30*64 kbps = 7.680 Mbps out of 8.448 Mbps
or 9.09% overhead

What happens next ?

PDH OVERHEAD
digital
signal

data rate

voice

(Mbps)

channels

overhead
percentage

T1

1.544

24

0.52 %

T2

6.312

96

2.66 %

T3

44.736

672

3.86 %

T4

274.176

4032

5.88 %

E1

2.048

30

6.25 %

E2

8.448

120

9.09 %

E3

34.368

480

10.61 %

E4

139.264

1920

11.76 %

Overhead always increases with data rate !

OAM
analog channels and 64 kbps digital channels
do not have mechanisms to check signal validity and quality
thus
major faults could go undetected for long periods of time
hard to characterize and localize faults when reported
minor defects might be unnoticed indefinitely

Solution is to add mechanisms based on overhead

as PDH networks evolved, more and more overhead was dedicated to
Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) functions
including:
monitoring for valid signal
defect reporting
alarm indication/inhibition (AIS)

PDH JUSTIFICATION
In addition to FAS, PDH overhead includes
justification control (C-bits) and justification opportunity stuffing (R-bits)
Assume the tributary bitrate is B T
Positive justification
payload is expected at highest bitrate B+T
if the tributary rate is actually at the maximum bitrate
then all payload and R bits are filled
if the tributary rate is lower than the maximum
then sometimes there are not enough incoming bits
so the R-bits are not filled and C-bits indicate this
Negative justification
payload is expected at lowest bitrate B-T
if the tributary rate is actually the minimum bitrate
then payload space suffices
if the tributary rate is higher than the minimum
then sometimes there are not enough positions to accommodate
so R-bits in the overhead are used and the C-bits indicate this
Positive/Negative justification
payload is expected at nominal bitrate B
positive or negative justification is applied as required

SONET/SDH
MOTIVATION AND HISTORY

FIRST STEP
With the disvestiture of the US Bell system a new need arose
MCI and NYNEX couldnt directly interconnect optical trunks
Interexchange Carrier Compatibility Forum requested T1 to solve problem
Needed multivendor/ multioperator fiber-optic communications standard
Three main tasks:
Optical interfaces (wavelengths, power levels, etc)
proposal submitted to T1X1 (Aug 1984)
T1.106 standard on single mode optical interfaces (1988)
Operations (OAM) system
proposal submitted to T1M1
T1.119 standard
Rates, formats, definition of network elements
Bellcore (Yau-Chau Ching and Rodney Boehm) proposal (Feb 1985)
proposed to T1X1
term SONET was coined
T1.105 standard (1988)

PDH LIMITATIONS
Rate limitations
Copper interfaces defined
Need to mux/demux hierarchy of levels (hard to pull out a single
timeslot)

Overhead percentage increases with rate

At least three different systems (Europe, NA, Japan)

E 2.048, 8.448, 34.348, 139.264

T 1.544, 3.152, 6.312, 44.736, 91.053, 274.176
J 1.544, 3.152, 6.312, 32.064, 97.728, 397.2

So a completely new mechanism was needed

IDEA BEHIND SONET

Synchronous Optical NETwork
Designed for optical transport (high bitrate)
Direct mapping of lower levels into higher ones
Carry all PDH types in one universal hierarchy
ITU version = Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
different terminology but interoperable
Overhead doesnt increase with rate
OAM designed-in from beginning

STANDARDIZATION !
The original Bellcore proposal:
hierarchy of signals, all multiple of basic rate (50.688)
basic rate about 50 Mbps to carry DS3 payload
bit-oriented mux
mechanisms to carry DS1, DS2, DS3
Many other proposals were merged into 1987 draft document (rate 49.920)
In summer of 1986 CCITT express interest in cooperation
needed a rate of about 150 Mbps to carry E4
wanted byte oriented mux
Initial compromise attempt
byte mux
US wanted 13 rows * 180 columns
CEPT wanted 9 rows * 270 columns
Compromise!
US would use basic rate of 51.84 Mbps, 9 rows * 90 columns
CEPT would use three times that rate - 155.52 Mbps, 9 rows * 270
columns

OPTICAL NETWORK
Communication

network
Optical fiber as the primary transmission
medium
Voice ,video and data transmission
Increase bandwidth,less bulky

First generation:
essentially used for transmission and simply to
provide capacity
Optical fiber provide lower BER and higher
capacity than copper cable
Switching and other intelligent work were
handled by electronics.
Eg:SONET/SDH

 SECOND

GEN: having routing

,switching and intelligence in the optical
layer
Eg: wavelength routing

WHAT IS SONET/SDH

SONET: Synchronous Optical network

SDH: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

Standard for optical telecommunications transport

SONET

was developed by ANSI,SDH was developed

by ITU-T
SDH(Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) and SONET
(Synchronous Optical network) are standards for
interfacing optical networks.

What is different about SDH vs

SONET?
Together they are a set of global standards

that interface equipment from different

vendors. SDH is basically the international
version of SONET, and SONET can be
thought of as the North American version of
SDH
The main differences are in the basic SDH
and SONET frame formats, but SDH and
SONET are essentially identical beyond the
STS-3 signal level. The base signal for
SONET is STS-1 and the base signal for
SDH is STM-1. STS-3c is equivalent to

Advantages of SONET
Increased bandwidth over traditional
telecomm system
Increased configuration flexibility that
supports future applications, with variety
of transmission rates
Reduction in equipment requirement
An increase in network reliability

SONET/SDH
ARCHITECTURE

LAYERS OF SONET
4 layers
1. Path
2. Line
3. section
4. Physical

SONET/SDH LAYERS

SONET defines four layers: path, line, section, and photonic

Path layer is responsible for the end-to-end connection between
nodes.
Line layer is responsible for protection switching to restore service
in case of link failure.
Section layer is for the movement of a signal across a physical
section, handling framing, scrambling, and error control
Photonic layer corresponds to the physical layer of OSI model

39

SONET EQUIPMENTS

DEVICE-LAYER RELATIONSHIP IN SONET

SONET Protocol
Path Layer: Mapping of DS0, DS1, DS3,
FDDI to Payload
Line Layer: Frame synchronization and
data multiplexing into a SONET frame
Section Layer: Framing, error monitoring
and bit-scrambling
Photonic Layer: Fiber characteristics,
encoding, transmitter and receiver types

LAYERS
SONET was designed with definite layering concepts
Physical layer optical fiber (linear or ring)
when exceed fiber reach regenerators
regenerators are not mere amplifiers,
regenerators use their own overhead
fiber between regenerators called section (regenerator section)
Line layer link between SONET muxes (Add/Drop Multiplexers)
input and output at this level are Virtual Tributaries (VCs)
actually 2 layers
lower order VC (for low bitrate payloads)
higher order VC (for high bitrate payloads)
Path layer end-to-end path of client data (tributaries)
client data (payload) may be
PDH
ATM
packet data

SONET ARCHITECTURE
Path
Termination

ADM

regenerator

ADM

Line
Termination

Section
Termination

Line
Termination

Path
Termination

path

line
section

line
section

line
section

section

SONET (SDH) has at 3 layers:

path end-to-end data connection, muxes tributary signals path

section

there are STS paths + Virtual Tributary (VT) paths

line protected multiplexed SONET payload

section

section physical link between adjacent elements

section

multiplex

regenerator

STS, OC, ETC.

A SONET signal is called a Synchronous Transport Signal
The basic STS is STS-1, all others are multiples of it - STS-N
The (optical) physical layer signal corresponding to an STS-N is an OCN
SONET

Optical

rate

STS-1

OC-1

51.84M

STS-3

OC-3

155.52M

*3

STS-12

OC-12

622.080M

*4

STS-48

OC-48

2488.32M

*4

STS-192

OC-192

9953.28M

*4

SONET & SDH HIERARCHY

SONET Electrical
Signal

Optical Signal

Bit Rate (Mbps)

SDH
Electrical Signal

STS-1

OC-1

51.84

N/A

STS-3

OC-3

155.52

STM-1

STS-9

OC-9

466.56

STM-3

STS-12

OC-12

622.08

STM-4

STS-18

OC-18

933.12

STM-6

STS-24

OC-24

1244.16

STM-8

STS-36

OC-36

1866.24

STM-12

STS-48

OC-48

2488.32

STM-16

STS-192

OC-192

9953.28

STM-64

STS: Synchronous
Transport Signal

OC: Optical Channel

STM: Synchronous
Transfer Module

46

SONET Multiplexing

SONET MULTIPLEXING

48

RATES

AND
FRAME STRUCTURE

SONET / SDH FRAMES

framing

Synchronous Transfer Signals are bit-signals (OC are optical)

Like all TDM signals, there are framing bits at the beginning of the
frame
However, it is convenient to draw SONET/SDH signals as rectangles

SONET STS-1 FRAME

90 columns

9 rows

framing

Each STS-1 frame is 90 columns * 9 rows = 810 bytes

There are 8000 STS-1 frames per second
so each byte represents 64 kbps (each column is 576 kbps)
Thus the basic STS-1 rate is 51.840 Mbps

SONET FRAME: STS-1

It consists of 9 rows of 90 bytes i.e. total
of 810 bytes
It is transmitted from left to right and top
to bottom
Transmission takes place serially
Frame length is 125s (i.e. 8000 frames
per second)
STS-1 has a bit rate of 51.84Mbps

SDH STM-1 FRAME

270 columns

9 rows

Synchronous Transport Modules are the bit-signals for SDH

Each STM-1 frame is 270 columns * 9 rows = 2430 bytes
There are 8000 STM-1 frames per second
Thus the basic STM-1 rate is 155.520 Mbps
3 times the STS-1 rate!

SONET/SDH RATES
SONET

SDH

STS-1

columns

rate

90

51.84M

STS-3

STM-1

270

155.52M

STS-12

STM-4

1080

622.080M

STS-48

STM-16

4320

2488.32M

STS-192

STM-64

17280

9953.28M

STS-N has 90N columns STM-M corresponds to STS-N with N = 3M

SDH rates increase by factors of 4 each time
STS/STM signals can carry PDH tributaries, for example:
STS-1 can carry 1 T3 or 28 T1s or 1 E3 or 21 E1s
STM-1 can carry 3 E3s or 63 E1s or 3 T3s or 84 T1s

STS-1 FRAME STRUCTURE

9 rows

6 rows

3 rows

90 columns

Transport
Overhead
TOH

Synchronous Payload Envelope

Section overhead is 3 rows * 3 columns = 9 bytes = 576 kbps

framing, performance monitoring, management
Line overhead is 6 rows * 3 columns = 18 bytes = 1152 kbps
protection switching, line maintenance, mux/concat, SPE
pointer
SPE is 9 rows * 87 columns = 783 bytes = 50.112 Mbps
Similarly, STM-1 has 9 (different) columns of section+line overhead

STM-1 FRAME STRUCTURE

270 columns
RSOH

MSOH

Section
Overhead
SOH

STM-1 has 9 (different) columns of transport overhead !

RS overhead is 3 rows * 9 columns
Pointer overhead is 1 row * 9 columns
MS overhead is 5 rows * 9 columns
SPE is 9 rows * 261 columns

SONET Multiplexing

The SONET standard supports multiple bit rates by multipl

basic STS-1 channels together.

Our design is targeted at STS-192 (OC-192), therefore we wi

192 independent STS-1 channels to manage.

The basic STS-1 line rate is 51.48 M bits/s, therefore our ST

stream will have a line rate of 9.953 G bit/s.

A point-to-point SONET network

SONET NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS

Point to point
Hub network
Ring network

POINT TO POINT

POINT TO MULTIPOINT

HUB NETWORK

RING NETWORK

TYPES OF NETWORKS

LAN LOCAL AREA NETWORK

MAN METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK

IS A SMALL
GEOGRAPHICAL AREA SUCH AS OUR SCHOOL BOARD
IS

A
NETWORK OVER A LARGER GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
SUCH AS THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT.

WAN WIDE AREA NETWORK

IS A NETWORK
USED OVER AN EXTREMELY LARGE GEOGRAPHICAL
AREA SUCH AS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

NETWORKS ARE BROKEN INTO 3

TOPOLOGIES.
THEY ARE:

BUS TOPOLOGY

STAR TOPOLOGY

RING TOPOLOGY

BUS TOPOLOGY ALLOWS INFORMATION TO BE DIRECTED FROM ONE

COMPUTER TO THE OTHER.
LOTS OF BINARY COLLISION THOUGH.

STAR TOPOLOGY IS THE MOST COMMON TYPE USED. ALL

COMPUTERS ARE ATTACHED TO A HUB. LESS COLLISIONS AND
MOST EFFICIENT.

RING TOPOLOGY- USES A TOKEN TO PASS INFORMATION FROM 1

COMPUTER TO THE OTHER. A TOKEN IS ATTACHED TO THE MESSAGE
BY THE SENDER TO IDENTIFY WHICH COMPUTER SHOULD RECEIVE
THE MESSAGE. AS THE MESSAGE MOVES AROUND THE RING, EACH
COMPUTER EXAMINES THE TOKEN. IF THE COMPUTER IDENTIFIES
THE TOKEN
AS ITS OWN, THEN IT WILL PROCESS THE INFORMATION.

A DISADVANTAGE OF A TOKEN RING IS IF ONE COMPUTER IS BROKEN OR D

CANNOT BE PASSED TO THE OTHER COMPUTERS.

SONET/SDH-Protection

PROTECTION IN SONET/SDH

Two fundamental types of protection mechanisms are used in

point-to-point links:
1 + 1 protection and 1:1 or, more generally, 1:N protection
Both operate in the line or multiplex section layer

(a) 1 + 1 protection, where the signal is simultaneously transmitted over

two paths;
(b) 1:1 protection, where the signal is transmitted over a working path
under normal conditions but switched to a protect path after a failure;
70

PROTECTION IN SONET/SDH

(c) 1:N protection, which is a more generalized form of 1:1 protection,

where N working paths share a single protection path.
71

1 + 1 PROTECTION

In 1 + 1 protection, traffic is transmitted simultaneously on two

separate fibers (usually over disjoint routes) from the source to the
destination.

Assuming unidirectional protection switching, the destination

simply selects one of the two fibers for reception.

If that fiber is cut, the destination simply switches over to the other
fiber and continues to receive data.

This form of protection is very fast and requires no signalling

protocol between the two ends.
72

1:1 PROTECTION

In 1:1 protection, there are still two fibers from the source to the
destination.

However, traffic is transmitted over only one fiber at a time, say, the
working fiber.

If that fiber is cut, the source and destination both switch over to
the other protection fiber.

An APS protocol is required for signalling between the source and

destination.

For this reason, 1:1 protection is not as quick as unidirectional 1 + 1

protection in restoring traffic because of the added communication
73
overhead involved.

ADVANTAGES OF 1:1 OVER 1 + 1 PROTECTION

Under normal operation, the protection fiber is unused, therefore,

it can be used to transmit lower-priority traffic.

This lower-priority traffic must be discarded if the working fiber is

cut.

SONET and SDH equipment in the field does provide support for
this lower-priority or extra traffic.

The 1:1 protection can be extended so as to share a single

protection fiber among many working fibers.

In a more general 1:N protection scheme, N working fibers share

a single protection fiber.
74

SONET/SDH RINGS
Commonly called as selfhealing rings since the traffic flowing along
a certain path can be automatically switched to an alternate or
standby path in case of a link failure.
Ring Types
The different types of ring architectures differ in two aspects:
Directionality of traffic (Unidirectional or Bidirectional)
Protection mechanisms (2 or 4-fiber, Line Switching or Path
Switching)

75

SONET/SDH RINGS
A unidirectional ring carries working traffic in only one direction of
the ring (say, clockwise)

A bidirectional ring carries working traffic in both directions.

In 2 fiber architecture, One fiber is used as the working fiber and
the other as the protection fiber

In 4 fiber architecture, Two fibers are used as working fibers, and

two are used for protection.
In Path Switching, the protection is performed at the path layer for
each connection.
In Line Switching, the protection is performed at the Line layer for
each connection.
76

SONET/SDH RINGS- 2-FIBER UPSR

77

SONET/SDH RINGS- 2-FIBER UPSR

Traffic from node A to node B is sent simultaneously on the
working fiber in the clockwise direction and on the protection
fiber in the counterclockwise direction.
Node B continuously monitors both the working and protection
fiber and selects the better signal between the two for each
SONET connection.

Under normal operation, suppose node B receives traffic from the

working fiber.
If there is a link failure, say, of link AB, then B will switch over to
the protection fiber and continue to receive the data.
The switchover is done on a connection-by-connection basis
78

SONET/SDH RINGS- 2-FIBER UPSR

Advantages
This protection scheme easily handles failures of links,
transmitters/ receivers, or nodes.
It is simple to implement and requires no signalling protocol or
communication between the nodes.
The capacity required for protection purposes is equal to the
working capacity.
Disadvantages
The main drawback with the UPSR is that it does not spatially
reuse the fiber capacity.
This is because each (bidirectional) connection uses up capacity
on every link in the ring and has dedicated protection bandwidth
associated with it.
Thus, there is no sharing of the protection bandwidth between
connections.
79

SONET/SDH RINGS- 2-FIBER UPSR

UPSRs are popular topologies in lower-speed local exchange and
access networks, particularly where the traffic is primarily hubbed
from the access nodes into a hub node in the carriers central office.

80

SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/4 ARCHITECTURE

Architecture of a four-fiber bidirectional line-switched ring(BLSR)

81

SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/4 ARCHITECTURE

BLSRs are much more sophisticated than UPSRs and incorporate
additional protection mechanisms,
Unlike UPSRs, they operate at the line or multiplex section layer.
The BLSR equivalent in the SDH world is called a multiplex section
shared protection ring (MS-SPRing).
Two fibers are used as working fibers, and two are used for protection.
Unlike a UPSR, working traffic in a BLSR can be carried on both
directions
along
the
ring.

82

SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/4 ARCHITECTURE

For example, on the working fiber, traffic from node A to node B is
carried clockwise along the ring, whereas traffic from B to A is
carried counter clockwise along the ring.
Usually, traffic belonging to both directions of a connection is routed
on the shortest path between the two nodes in the ring.
However, in certain cases, traffic may be routed along the longer path
to reduce network congestion and make better use of the available
capacity.

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SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/4 ARCHITECTURE

A BLSR/4 employs two types of protection mechanisms: span
switching and ring switching.

In span switching, if a transmitter or receiver on a working fiber fails,

the traffic is routed onto the protection fiber between the two nodes
on the same link
Span switching can also be used to restore traffic in the event of a
working fiber cut, provided the protection fibers on that span are
routed separately from the working fibers.
In ring swithing, service is restored case of a fiber or cable cut.
Suppose link AB fails. The traffic on the failed link is then rerouted by
nodes A and B around the ring on the protection fibers.
Ring switching is also used to protect against a node failure.

84

SPAN SWITCHING IN A BLSR/4

85

RING SWITCHING IN A BLSR/4

86

SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/2 ARCHITECTURE

87

SONET/SDH RINGS-BLSR/2 ARCHITECTURE

A BLSR/2,can be thought of as a BLSR/4 with the protection fibers
embedded within the working fibers.

In a BLSR/2, both of the fibers are used to carry working traffic, but half
the capacity on each fiber is reserved for protection purposes.
Unlike a BLSR/4, span switching is not possible here, but ring switching
works in much the same way as in a BLSR/4.
In the event of a link failure, the traffic on the failed link is rerouted
along the other part of the ring using the protection capacity available
in the two fibers.

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FOUR FIBER-BLSR ARCHITECTURE

ADVANTAGES

BLSRs are more efficient than UPSRs in protecting distributed traffic

patterns.
Their efficiency comes from the fact that the protection capacity in the
ring is shared among all the connections
BLSRs are widely deployed in long-haul and interoffice networks,
where the traffic pattern is more distributed than in access networks.