Bell Labs OTN

Realizing the Optical Transport Networking Vision in the 100 Gb/s Era
Silvano Frigerio, Alberto Lometti, Juergen Rahn, Stephen Trowbridge, and Eve L. Varma
After a half-decade hiatus, stimulated by dramatic service-driven increases in backbone network bandwidth requirements, industry focus has once again turned to realizing a vision of optical transport networking (OTN). In the timeframe since the rst OTN standards were stabilized, technology has continued to evolve, and additional new service requirements have materialized. The ability to provide optimized support for gigabit Ethernet services, ranging from 1Gb/s to 100 Gb/s, has become a high priority. This paper examines how evolving OTN standards provide a multi-service capable backbone infrastructure supporting lambda and sub-lambda services with guaranteed quality, the role of optical control plane technology in realizing dynamically congurable OTN and Internet Protocol (IP) over optical transport networking solutions, and emerging technology enablers. The paper concludes by providing a vision of optical transport network infrastructure evolution in the 100 Gb/s era. 2010 Alcatel-Lucent.
Introduction
Bandwidth demand continues to grow worldwide, fueled by new Internet Protocol (IP)-based services and multimedia applications. The availability of higher bandwidth service offerings, coupled with applications needing higher speeds, has resulted in dramatic increases in access rates in order to enable faster consumer access to these services. This dramatic increase in access rates has created a domino effect, rippling through metro networks and ultimately driving dramatic increases in backbone network bandwidth requirements. With higher volume, lower revenue service mixes driving the need for increased protability, there has been increased service provider attention towards converging multiple services onto a future-proof next-generation optical transport network (NG-OTN) infrastructure positioned to support emerging ultra-high bit rate services (e.g., IEEE 100GBASE-R, 40GBASE-R). Leveraging optical control plane advances, dynamically congurable OTN and IP-over-OTN solutions deliver on the promise of rapid provisioning, increased automation, and richer sets of service functionality. The control plane enabled OTN opens the door to new services, similar to how signaling system 7 (SS7) opened up the possibilities for advanced intelligent networking (AIN) for the public switched telephony network (PSTN). IP-over-OTN solutions not only provide a dynamically congurable optical layer responsive to IP networking demands, but enable multi-layer optimization with superior service resiliency. This paper examines OTN standardization advances and how OTN-based networking helps service providers
Bell Labs Technical Journal 14(4), 163192 (2010) 2010 Alcatel-Lucent. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bltj.20410
Panel 1. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Terms 3RReshape, retime, retransmit AINAdvanced intelligent networking AISAlarm indication signal AMPAsynchronous mapping procedure APSAutomatic protection switching ASICApplication-specic integrated circuit ASONAutomatically switched optical network ASSPApplication specic standard product ATMAsynchronous transfer mode BERBit error rate BIPBit interleaved parity BoDBandwidth on demand CAPEXCapital expenditure CBRConstant bit rate CDRClock and data recovery CMConnection monitoring CMOSComplementary metal-oxide semiconductor DCDirect current DPSKDifferential phase shift keying DQPSKDifferential quadrature phase shift keying DWDMDense wavelength division multiplexing E-NNIExternal network-network interface FDIForward defect indication FECForward error correction GbEGigabit Ethernet GFPGeneric framing procedure GFP-FGFP-framed GFP-TGFP-transparent GMPGeneric mapping procedure GMPLSGeneralized multiprotocol label switching HOHigher order IEEEInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IaDIIntra-domain interface IPInternet Protocol IrDIInter-domain interface ITUInternational Telecommunication Union ITU-TITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector LANLocal area network LCASLink capacity adjustment scheme LHLong haul LOLower order LOSLoss of signal MIIMedia independent interface MPLSMultiprotocol label switching NENetwork element NG-OTNNext-generation OTN NMSNetwork management system NOCNetwork operations center OADMOptical add/drop multiplexer OAMOperations, administration, and maintenance OChOptical channel ODUOptical channel data unit O/EOptical/electrical OEOOptical-electronic-optical OMSOptical multiplex section ONEOptical network element OOKOn-off keying OPEXOperating expenses OPSMnkOptical physical section multilane (n number of lanes) OPUOptical channel payload unit OSCOptical supervisory channel OSNROptical signal-to-noise ratio OSSOperations support system OTLCOptical transport lane carrier OTLCGOptical transport lane carrier group OTMOptical transport module OTNOptical transport network OTSOptical transport section OTUOptical channel transport unit P2PPoint-to-point PCSPhysical coding sublayer PDHPlesiochronous digital hierarchy PHYPhysical layer PMDPolarization mode dispersion PSTNPublic switched telephony network PXCPhotonic cross connect QoSQuality of service QPSKQuadrature phase shift keying ROADMRecongurable optical add/drop multiplexer SDHSynchronous digital hierarchy SESpectral efciency SLAService level agreement SONETSynchronous optical network SRLGShared risk link group SS7Signaling system 7 STMSynchronous transfer mode TCMTandem connection monitoring TDMTime division multiplexing TOADMTunable optical add/drop multiplexer ULHUltra long haul UNIUser network interface VCATVirtual concatenation VCGVCAT group VLANVirtual local area network VPVirtual path VTVirtual tributary WANWide area network WDMWavelength division multiplexing WSSWavelength selective switch WXCWavelength cross connect
evolve to a unied, optimized layer of high-capacity, high-reliability bandwidth management, providing solutions for delivering existing and emerging packetbased services with guaranteed quality.
History
During the late 1990s, the telecommunications industry became swept up in a desire to capitalize on an unprecedented demand for network capacity, mostly driven by rapidly growing packet-based servicesin particular, by Internet/Intranet-based applications. The industry view was that transport networks would need to become optimized for much larger capacity channels carrying broadband data, voice, and video. At the same time, driven by the vision of virtually innite information bandwidth and transport in the optical domain, research thrusts accelerated in exploring sophisticated photonic devices and techniques to allow the transport and routing of signals in the optical domain [1]. While these early visions focused upon optical transparency, it became clear that practical visions for optical networking involved the use of optoelectronics to support carrier grade transport capabilities. The optical transport network was born out of this recognition, leveraging industry synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH)/synchronous optical network (SONET) experience and considering optical technology factors, and was considered the next step beyond SDH/SONET in supporting data-driven needs for bandwidth and the emergence of new broadband services [26]. The industry was swept up in a wave of standardization initiatives to create a suite of OTN recommendations. It was expected that optical transport networks would quickly evolve from dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) remedies for capacity exhaust, to DWDM optical networking solutions optimized for support of fully transparent Gb/s services. However, with the bursting of the Internet bubble, bandwidth requirements were lower than predicted with little demand surfacing for wavelength leased lines, and client signals remained predominantly at the sub-SDH and synchronous transfer mode (STM)16 rates. Exacerbating the situation, there was a significant amount of installed excess capacity in
long-haul networks that had been laid in the expectation of its imminent need. The market downturn in succeeding years resulted in deferred deployment of new photonic networking technologies. Thus, in the timeframe during which the OTN standardization effort came to fruition, the market stalled. In the past few years, the anticipated bandwidth demands have nally materialized, as exemplied by intensive Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards initiatives for specication of 100 GbE/40 GbE. Concurrently, packet-based services optimization demands have driven interest in OTN capabilities well down into the sub-lambda ranges. These forces have triggered OTN evolution initiatives, expanding its scope from 1 Gb/s through 100 Gb/s, with further upward growth towards 400 Gb in the next decade.
OTN Drivers
Drivers for evolution from SDH/SONET to OTN have evolved over the timeframe from its conception to its rebirth. A case in point is the meaning and role of OTN transparency, referring to the set of characteristics of a client signal that are preserved when that client is carried over the OTN. Examples of types and levels of transparency include dark ber, wavelength, bit, symbol or codeword, Ethernet (media independent interface [MII], frame plus preamble, frame), and timing. As noted previously, the early optical transparency visions of transport of arbitrary client signals over wavelengths of a ber-optic network were found problematic given the various impairments (e.g., chromatic and polarization mode dispersion, attenuation) that occur when traversing various ber types and optical components. There can also be challenges in preserving the same set of client characteristics when a client is transported on a dedicated wavelength versus when that same client is digitally multiplexed with other client signals onto a higher bit rate wavelength. Even the concept of bit transparency for digital client signals is elusive considering that client signals need to be recovered using clock and data recovery (CDR) and framing circuitry, which requires a certain frequency of transitions (clock content) and direct current (DC) balance that is generally guaranteed by
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a client-specic line coding or scrambler. Proper operation of the network, ability to isolate faults, and ability of a server network to generate a meaningful replacement signal towards a client device in the case of failures require a certain amount of client-specic processing. Additionally, in a digital multiplexing hierarchy, more efcient encoding techniques may need to be employed to enable efcient transport of certain client signals over channels of the selected hierarchical bit rates. Thus, what was originally thought to be a simple idea of client transparency has become a complex set of trade-offs that involve identifying the set of characteristics of a client signal that need to be preserved for proper operation of a service and developing mappings that preserve those characteristics when the client is transported over the OTN. It has also become essential for the OTN to be able to offer efcient transport of not only the new ultra-high bandwidth packet services, but also the lower granularity services of importance to network operators. Finally, the OTN must continue to satisfy the challenge of reducing operations complexity for next-generation networks composed of existing and emergent opto-electronic (OEO) network elements and wholly photonic optical network elements (ONEs) [16]. Foundation OTN Problem Domain Hybrid solutions involving SDH/SONET [15] integration with DWDM technology were increasingly being deployed for tapping into the full capacity of ber plant to maximize the return on existing facilities.
In these applications, most of the transport networking functionality was provided by the underlying SDH/ SONET systems that used the DWDM spans. As network trafc grew and DWDM deployment continued, utilization of this approach for networked DWDM applications resulted in limitations in supporting multicarrier and multi-service networking requirements. Specically, supporting networked DWDM applications using SDH/SONET layer functionality ran into several barriers, described further in the following subsections. Transport of SDH/SONET connection services. At the time SDH/SONET was developed, it was assumed that this technology would always serve as the lowest networking layer. SDH/SONET offers path layer transparency (for the payload), multiplex section transparency, and nally regenerator section transparency (as provided by the physical media layer). Only path layer transparency was considered as supporting a user service. Thus, there was no capability offered to support a carriers carrier application in which the user service was an SDH/SONET connection service. That is, a carriers carrier could not transparently carry both SDH/SONET payload and overhead, as multiplex/regenerator section overhead would always be terminated upon multiplexing or cross-connection. An example of the problem this presents is illustrated in Figure 1, which depicts carriage of a service by network operator A, that in turn makes use of network facilities provided by an intervening network provided by network operator B (serving as a carriers carrier). In this example, network operator A desires to support end-to-end protection via usage of a SDH/SONET
SDH/SONET technology
User domain
Network operator A domain
Network operator B domain
Network operator A domain
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SDH/SONET ring
SDHSynchronous digital hierarchy SONETSynchronous optical network
Figure 1. Multi-operator network example.
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ring. However, this is not possible as it would require that SDH/SONET equipment within network operator Bs network not terminate the multiplex section overhead. The only solution for the carriers carrier in such a case would be to deploy a passive all-optical solution, but then they would not have the necessary operations, administration, and maintenance (OAM) capabilities to maintain their own network. Operations complexity challenges: multi-carrier scenarios. With movement towards networked DWDM solutions involving deployment of flexible ONEs, it became essential to overcome any associated limitations/barriers that added to operations complexity and increased network cost. At the same time, there was an increasing need to provide enhanced service level agreement (SLA) verication and fault sectionalization capabilities in multi-carrier/multidomain networking scenarios. Supporting SLA verication and fault localization in multi-carrier scenarios brings additional challenges. The transport OAM that enables fault isolation and SLA validation in multi-domain environments is known as tandem connection monitoring (TCM). Existing SDH/SONET network OAM standards support one level of TCM. Specically, again considering the multi-operator scenario of Figure 1, SDH/SONET TCM either allows network operator A to monitor the end-to-end connection or allows each network operator to separately monitor its own network. As it is not possible to concurrently perform both types of monitoring, SLA verification requires tight intercarrier cooperation. For example, if the decision is made to provide end-to-end monitoring, manual processes are required for fault localization. If the decision is made to provide per-operator monitoring, an end-to-end carrier serving as the prime contractor of the service cannot determine overall signal quality. This carrier would therefore need to rely upon customer complaints or work to assure tight coupling of management systems across carrier boundaries. Such lack of direct end-to-end monitoring for service assurance ended up being a barrier to lowering operations cost. Operational challenges: photonic networking fault sectionalization. Further challenges arise with application scenarios involving networked DWDM systems and flexible ONEs. Consider a client time division
multiplexing (TDM) service transported over an optical network composed of exible ONEs such as reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and photonic cross connects (PXCs), which are interconnected by SDH/SONET-based DWDM line systems. In order to support client service-transparent transport, the overhead of the client signal could not be terminated, requiring usage of non-intrusive monitoring to check its health. If impairments occurred on one of the DWDM line systems, causing client signal impairments (bit errors), a threshold crossing alert would be detected not only at the rst downstream SDH/SONET section BIP (bit interleaved parity) monitor point, but also at all downstream monitor points. Similarly, if a misconnection occurred within a photonic cross connect, a trace mismatch defect would be detected not only at the rst downstream SDH/ SONET section trace monitor point, but also at all downstream monitor points. In both cases, management system intervention would again be required for fault localization. Inability to do autonomous fault sectionalization also adversely impacts shared protection/restoration capabilities, even if fault isolation to a specic span is not required to initiate survivability actions. In particular, it is necessary to know whether the fault occurred within the protected domain or outside the protected domain, since faults occurring outside the domain cannot be protected against. If switching/ restoration activity is initiated by faults occurring outside of their protection domain, resultant unnecessary switches will increase, versus decrease, downtime (since upon clearing of the fault, an additional switch back to the normal path must be made). Unnecessary switching also wastes spare capacity that could otherwise have been used to restore trafc disrupted by a fault within the protected domain (with the potential consequence being the inability to restore this trafc). Operational challenges: photonic networking alarm storms. SDH/SONET networks control faults by providing a specic alarm indication signal (AIS) indicating that the fault has been detected, and that downstream elements need not raise an alarm. As discussed earlier, since it was originally assumed that SDH/SONET would always serve as the lowest network layer, no provision was originally made for an
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alarm indication signal between SDH/SONET regenerators. To address this omission, a generic AIS was defined in standards for use by SDH/SONET-based DWDM systems to prevent downstream SDH/SONET network elements from alarming because of a DWDM line system failure. However, generic AIS can only be inserted at points supporting opto-electronic regeneration (i.e., OEO points). Consider the implications of a major failure such as a cable cut in a network composed of conventional SDH/SONET-based DWDM systems and ONEs, which do not support OEO capabilities. If there is a DWDM line system failure, there are no OEO points available for insertion of the generic AIS to prevent downstream SDH/SONET network elements from alarming. In a transport network with several cables per duct, dozens of fibers per cable, and hundreds of wavelengths per ber, a cable cut occurring within such a photonic subnetwork could result in hundreds of thousands of loss of signal (LOS) indications, which would ood the management communications network. Further, localizing the fault to the specific DWDM line system would require the network management system to handle and correlate huge numbers of LOS alarms. Aside from operations considerations, lack of alarm suppression capabilities also inhibits cost reduction of photonic subnetworks by preventing removal of opto-electronic transponders at points where they are not already needed for other reasons (e.g., a signal which does not require regeneration, or for demarcation). OTN Evolution Problem Domain OTN was designed to support both TDM (SDH/SONET, PDH) and packet services. However, since the foundation OTN bit rates were established, several new packet transport-related market forces have emerged. Foundation OTN was developed in the context of considering STM-N [15] and emerging Ethernet interfaces, as well as maximum line rates of 10 G transoceanic line systems. It could efciently transport the SDH STM64 compatible IEEE 10GBASE-W (10 GbE WAN PHY) [9] as a constant bit rate (CBR) service or use the generic framing procedure (GFP) [18] to map packet streams including Ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM),
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and IP directly into OTN containers. However, some IEEE 802.3 standards non-compliant applications emerged carrying layer 2 client application data in Ethernet 10GBASE-R (10 GbE LAN PHY) [9] frame structure entities, such as the preamble and inter-packet gap. As the standard OTN container sizes could not efciently carry the slightly higher rate 10GbE LAN PHY as a CBR service, a proliferation of various semi-standard mechanisms resulted (e.g., over-clocking) and were ultimately documented in the informative International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) G.Sup43 [19]. While these mechanisms were used for point-to-point applications, concern arose that this proliferation would migrate to 40 G, via 4 10 G local area network (LAN) PHY implementations. Lack of coherent integration, and a solution for capping the 10 G LAN/WAN PHY perturbation, has been a thorn in the industrys side [8]. Demand for more optimized solutions for IEEE 1000 BASE-X (1 GbE) signals has emerged from operators moving to cap SDH/SONET deployments, as well as those simply increasing investment in OTN infrastructure deployments. For operators planning to transition to an OTN infrastructure, it was considered important to provide a finer granularity container with the same OAM capabilities as those present in the foundation OTN hierarchy. For service scenarios where GbE is adapted and payload mapped to incumbent SDH/SONET transport systems, it was thought logical to maintain a robust SDH/SONET payload multiplexing scheme overlaid on OTN through the core. There are also scenarios in which there is no incumbent SDH/SONET deployed at the edge of the network, and here the option of adopting an optimized Ethernet client payload mapping directly onto OTN is quite attractive. At the other end of the bandwidth spectrum, demand emerged that the OTN be capable of efciently supporting IEEE 802.3ba 100GBASE-R (100 GbE) signals. By adding a new higher tier to the OTN hierarchy, transport networks could continue to support the highest bit rate enterprise services. In addition to transport of ultra-high rate Ethernet mappings, this new tier allows mapping and multiplexing of foundation OTN signals into higher bit rate lambdas for improved spectral efficiency. The IEEE 802.3ba
denition of 40GBASE-R (40 GbE) signals provides a strong driver for assuring compatibility with foundation OTN to leverage the deployed infrastructure. The mapping into OTN is independent of Ethernet polarization mode dispersion (PMD) technology choices and evolution, enabling end-to-end 40 GbE and 100 GbE services [25]. As high-speed Ethernet development is expected to produce cost effective single-client parallel interfaces for up to 40 km reach, architectures enabling usage of 40 GbE/100 GbE optical modules for corresponding SDH/SONET and OTN client side interfaces facilitate common cost curves, becoming a major driver for reducing capital expenditure (CAPEX). Recent developments in synchronous Ethernet [7], which require transparency of the timing of the signal as well as the data content, have driven design of new mappings for Ethernet as CBR services over OTN, similar in concept to the timing transparent mappings of SDH over OTN. Finally, as packet technologies continue to advance, it becomes increasingly valuable to have the ability to create packet trunks of variable sizes for carrying packet ows (e.g., virtual local area networks [VLANs]) through the OTN, enabling usage of lower order (LO) optical channel data unit (ODU) layer 1 switching versus needing to route packets at every node at higher cost per bit.
Allows networks to support end-to-end monitoring of client services while decoupling the switching granularity from the DWDM line system capacity. The OTN value proposition has primarily been based on building upon the industrys positive experience with SDH/SONET, providing 1) support for new revenue generating services and 2) solutions for offering enhanced OAM capabilities, while addressing inherent optical transmission challenges that did not exist for SDH (e.g., DWDM system engineering rules with/without exible ONEs). Key features include: Ability to offer enhanced SLA verication capabilities in support of multi-carrier, multi-service environment. This was expected to offer additional revenue generating opportunities by allowing operators to lease capacity to other operators while still being able to provide high-quality SLA verication. Provision of scalable maintenance solutions encompassing introduction of exible ONEs. This required support for client-independent fault and signal degradation isolation, client independent monitoring, and prevention of alarm storms in all-optical sub networks that would reduce OPEX. Foundation OTN Structure and Format The optical transport network architecture [10], similar to SDH/SONET, encompasses three hierarchical transport layers: Optical Transport Section (OTS). An optical regeneration section layer that is devoted to the management of line optical ampliers and related links. The OTS represents a multi-wavelength signal over a single optical span (e.g., between line ampliers). Optical Multiplex Section (OMS). An optical multiplex section layer devoted to the multiplexing of lambdas, and thus to the management of multiplexers/demultiplexers. The OMS represents a multi-wavelength signal over multiple optical spans (e.g., between DWDM equipment). Optical Channel (OCh). An optical path layer devoted to end-to-end management of lambdas within the OTN. The OCh represents a single optical channel over multiple optical spans having exible connectivity.
Foundation OTN Dened

Foundation OTN represents a transport networking layer that has been considered the next step beyond SDH/SONET in supporting data-driven needs for bandwidth and the emergence of new broadband services. It provides a multi-service capable core infrastructure that leverages lessons learned from the SDH/SONET experience and adds optical technology to meet the challenges of the evolving telecommunications networking environment. It provides gigabitlevel bandwidth granularity required to scale and manage multi-terabit networks, that: Maximizes nodal switching capacity, which is the gating factor for recongurable network capacity. Avoids very large numbers of fine granularity pipes that stress network planning, administration, survivability, management systems, and control protocols.
OTN technology
Network operator A domain IrDI
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IaDI IaDIIntra-domain interface OTNOptical transport network
IaDI
Figure 2. OTN interface classication.
ITU-T Recommendation G.872 also denes two types of OTN interfaces, which are specied in Rec. G.709 [20]: inter-domain (IrDI) and intra-domain (IaDI), as illustrated in Figure 2. The IrDI interfaces, by denition, employ reshape, retime, retransmit (3R) processing at each end of the interface (which could be between different operator domains, or between different vendors in a given operator domain). This assures digital processing capabilities may be leveraged to validate the quality of signal handoff between these domains. It should also be noted that G.709 interfaces are logical interfaces; i.e., there is no specication of the corresponding electrical or optical interfaces that would also be required for their implementation. The logical structure of the OTN networking interface, the optical transport module (OTM), is described further below and illustrated in Figure 3 [26]. The OCh is composed of an optical channel payload unit (OPU), ODU, and optical channel transport unit (OTU). The OPU provides the functionality for the mapping of client signals into the ODU. The ODU is a network-wide transport entity that can transparently transport a wide range of client signals. Foundation OTN denes three rates of approximately 2.5 Gb/s, 10 Gb/s, and 40 Gb/s that are referred to as the ODUk (k 1, 2, or 3). Client signals mapped into the OPU include bit synchronous constant bit rate, asynchronous CBR, ATM streams based on virtual path (VP), and mapping of
data clients via GFP. The CBR streams are limited to the average data rates corresponding to the related SDH/SONET rates of 2.488 Gb/s for OPU1, 9.995 Gb/s for OPU2, and 40.150 Gb/s for OPU3, each with a long term frequency tolerance of 20 ppm. Values for these CBR streams, and the related OPUk, ODUk, and OTUk (k 1, 2, 3) are provided in Table I. OPUk overhead includes information on payload type, supporting rate adaptation for CBR signals using xed and exible stuffing (justification) and providing justification control. The ODU adds overhead to support managed services in multi-operator DWDM-based optical networks in the client-independent manner that is essential for operating such networks. The overhead enables monitoring to support end-customer, service provider, and network operator needs, providing for multiple levels of nested and overlapping connection monitoring. Foundation G.709 provides virtual concatenation (VCAT) of OPUk signals in order to decouple the path establishment from the actual physical network resources, such as: Ability to transport ultra-high rate services on foundation infrastructure, including CBR 10 G and CBR 40 G signals across bers supporting less than 10 G and/or 40 G wavelengths. Finer granularity bandwidth allocation to map packet streams into the most efficiently sized pipes that, in conjunction with the link capacity
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Client Digital domain Associated overhead OH OH OH Client OPUk ODUk OTUk OCC OH OH OOS OSC Optical transport module OPUOptical channel payload unit OSCOptical supervisory channel OTMOptical transport module OTNOptical transport network OTSOptical transmission section OTUOptical channel transport unit OCC
OMSn OTSn
FEC
OH Non-associated overhead
OCC OPS0
FECForward error correction OCCOptical channel carrier ODUOptical channel data unit OHOverhead OMSOptical multiplex section OOSOTM overhead signal OPSOptical physical section
Figure 3. Foundation OTN: structure of optical transport module. Table I. Values for CBR streams and related OPU, ODU, and OTU. ODU type and rate ODU1 2 498 775 kb/s ODU2 10 037 273 kb/s ODU3 40 319 218 kb/s CBR client STM16 STM64 OPU type and OPU payload nominal bit rate OPU1 2 488 320 kb/s OPU2 238/237 9 953 280 kb/s 9 995 276.962 kb/s OPU3 238/236 39 813 120 kb/s 40 150 519.322 kb/s 20 ppm each
OTU type and rate OTU1 2 666 057 kb/s OTU2 10 709 225 kb/s OTU3 43 018 413 kb/s
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OTU, ODU, and OPU payload bit rate tolerance is

CBRConstant bit rate ODUOptical channel data unit OPUOptical channel payload unit
OTUOptical channel transport unit STMSynchronous transfer mode
adjustment scheme (LCAS) [12], provide hitless bandwidth modification and built-in resilience when the signal components are routed via two or more diverse routes. Since the supervision of a number of ODUk belonging to a VCAT group (VCG) is more complex than the management of a single, per service, transport entity, and the allowed great exibility (individual
VCG members on different wavelengths or provision of bandwidth higher than the bit rate of a wavelength) requires large buffers for differential delay compensation, an additional mechanism (see the section describing ODUflex) was subsequently introduced to provide flexible allocation of bandwidth within a single wavelength without this complexity.
To condition the ODU for transport over a wavelength in an optical transport network, it is transported within an OTU frame that includes a forward error correction (FEC) code. The OTUk adapts the ODUk for transport over 3R sections. Some OTUk signals offer standards interoperability to support the interconnection of two networks of different operators and/or subnetworks of different vendors. Other OTUk signals are vendor proprietary (OTUkV) and will be deployed in vendor-specic subnetworks only. Overhead is also provided for single and multichannel optical signals to support management of the all-optical parts of the OTN network. Unlike sublambda overhead, this optical signal overhead is typically transported via a separate optical supervisory channel (OSC) wavelength and is called non-associated. While sub-lambda overhead (syntax and semantics) has been fully standardized in ITU-T G.709, only the functionality of lambda overhead for single and aggregated channels has been standardized, with the supporting OAM mechanisms yet to be provided. The OTN will therefore consist of vendor- and/or operator-specic OTN subnetworks (with IaDI interfaces), interconnected via standard optical-transport module (OTM0, OTM-n) inter-domain interfaces. ITU-T G.709 interface and G.798 equipment [14] specications, together with G.959.1 [17] optical physical layer specications, describe both the single channel OTM0 and 16 and 32 channel DWDM IrDI with simplied OTS, OMS, and OPS layer (the OPS0 denoting the single channel section layer) specications for short-haul single and multi-channel interfaces. Foundation OTN Solution Domain This section illustrates how foundation OTN capabilities can be leveraged to address the challenges described in the section titled Foundation OTN Problem Domain. Referring back to the example illustrated in Figure 1, transport of SDH/SONET connection services is no longer an issue if network operator B deploys an OTN network. In this case, the entire SDH/SONET frame is mapped into an OCh, which provides networking capabilities (cross-connection, protection) at the OCh level, and is transparently carried through network operator Bs network.
Multi-carrier scenarios can easily be supported via ITU-T G.709 connection monitoring capabilities, as illustrated in Figure 4, enabling a wide range of SLA verication capabilities. The ODUk signal provides nested and overlapping connection monitoring (CM) capabilities for every stakeholder in the transport domain: customer, service provider, and network operators. The customers can own the OCh endpoints (and their monitoring capabilities), and service providers can own the OCh leased circuits for which the network operators provide the OCh connections. Two xed levels of CM capabilities (path and section CM) and six variable levels of nested and overlapping connection monitoring are dened for this purpose. These also can be applied for protected domain monitoring, testing, and optical-link connection monitoring. Photonic network fault sectionalization is easily supported via leveraging OTUk section overhead: For the case of the DWDM line system impairments resulting in bit errors, OTUk section monitoring at the adjacent downstream network element detects a bit error rate (BER) threshold crossing. However, OTUk overhead inserted at downstream nodes allows independent monitoring of OTUk sections. Thus, downstream nodes will not detect bit errors caused by the upstream degradations in other OTUk sections, and the degradation can be easily isolated to the correct DWDM line system. For the case of the photonic cross connect misconnection, trace mismatch will only be detected within the OTUk OH of the impacted section. Again, since new OTUk overhead is inserted to monitor downstream sections, those sections will not detect the misconnection, and the isolation of the fault is relatively simple. Finally, within a photonic subnetwork, OTN nonassociated overhead carried within the OSC prevents alarm storms. In the event of a ber cut, OCh forward defect indication (FDI) signals are simply sent via the OSC to downstream nodes to prevent LOS alarms from being reported. Thus, only the OTN network element (NE) adjacent to the fault will report an LOS alarm.
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OTN ingress/egress client mapping
Operator A
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Operator A Working
User
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Protection supervision (TCM4)
Operator domain and domain interconnect supervision (TCM3) Service provider QoS supervision (TCM2) User QoS supervision (TCM1) End-to-end path supervision (PM) OTNOptical transport network PMPath monitoring QoSQuality of service TCMTandem connection monitoring
Figure 4. OTN tandem connection monitoring levels.
OTN Evolution Dened

The foundation OTN structures and formats previously described were designed to provide an easily evolvable modular approach. The goal of OTN evolution is to extend and enrich the foundation hierarchy as a seamless transition towards enabling optimized support for an increasingly abundant service mix. ITU-T G.709 Amendment 3 [20], approved April 2009, extended the hierarchy at both ends and added the capability to support new services, as illustrated in Figure 5. At the lower end, a new ODU0 hierarchical layer was added that was optimized to support 1 GbE client signals. At the upper end, a new ODU4 hierarchical layer was added, optimized to support transport of emerging new 100 GbE services, and also designed to be a server capable of carrying all current and future OTN services. Clarication of client/server relationships was provided by the denition of higher order (HO)
and lower order OPU and ODU transport entities. The LO ODUk represents the container transporting a client of the OTN that is either directly mapped into an OTUk or multiplexed into a server HO ODUk container. Consequently, the HO ODUk represents the entity transporting a multiplex of LO ODUj tributary signals in its OPUk area. Note that the LO OPU and HO OPU, and related LO ODU and HO ODU, have the same information structures though they represent different entities. Great care was taken to assure preservation of the integrity of the foundation OTN hierarchy. There is a single standardized server line rate at each tier of the hierarchy; HO ODUk/OTUk (k 14) at 2.5 Gb/s, 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s, and 100 Gb/s. There is a single standardized client container rate at 1.25 Gb/s, 2.5 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s, and 100 Gb/s; LO ODUj (j 0, 1, 3, 4) for both CBR and GbE clients.
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Foundation G.709 Hierarchy G.709 Amendment 3 ODU clients 1GbE CBR2G5 CBRx
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GFPGeneric framing procedure GMPGeneric mapping procedure HOHigher order LANLocal area network
LOLower order ODUOptical channel data unit OTNOptical transport network OTUOptical channel transport unit
Figure 5. OTN hierarchy evolution.
There are two standardized client rates at 10 Gb/s: LO and HO ODU2 for SDH and most other clients, and LO ODU2e for transparent 10GBASE-R and transcoded FC1200. (Originally described in G.Sup43, the new LO ODU2e represents one of the most widely deployed over-clocked ODU2 options for 10 GbE LAN PHY signal transport.) A standard mapping provides codewordtransparent 10 GbE, which is networkable over standard ODU2 bit-rate networks. (Originally described in ITU-T G.Sup43, and elevated to standards status, this method maps the Ethernet packets, preamble, and ordered set information into GFP-F frames, with only the inter-frame gap information not preserved.)
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Two avors of non-normative ODU3 rates (HO ODU3e1, ODU3e2), for transport of four overclocked ODU2s (ODU2e) over a single wavelength, were included in G.Sup43. The ODU0 frame structure is consistent with that of foundation ODUj, with a rate of 1.244 Gb/s. As this rate is too low for bit-transparent transport of the 1 GbE line code, a 10B codeword transparent mapping has been dened using the same 64B/65B transcoding method used for the mapping of 1 GbE into virtually concatenated SDH containers (VC4-7v). The ODU0 carrying 1 GbE can be cleanly multiplexed into the foundation hierarchy, e.g., two per ODU1 and eight per ODU2. This signal is then mapped into the ODU0 frame using GFP-T [18], using sigma-delta justication to handle clock tolerance differences. This timing transparent method supports synchronous Ethernet.
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The ODU0, which has no corresponding OTU physical layer interface, can be mapped into two newly dened 1.25 Gb tributary slots of the ODU1. The ODU4 container size was selected as 104.794 Gb/s to assure efcient transport of 100 GbE (and corresponding OTU4 rate of 111.81 Gb/s) selected by balancing optical physical layer constraints with client needs. The ODU4 a d d i t i o n a l l y s u p p o r t s 8 0 t r i b u t a r y s l o t s o f 1 . 2 5 Gb/s for mapping LO ODUs in a exible non-blocking manner. To support 40 GbE services, a physical coding sublayer (PCS) codeword-transparent mapping has been specied that allows mapping into a standard ODU3 container by transcoding the 64B/66B line code of the Ethernet interface into a 512B/513B code. A strictly controlled 66B line code has been agreed
between IEEE and ITU-T which assures there will be no future issues regarding OTN compatibility and no need for proprietary over-clocked solutions [25]. This mapping supports timing transparency for synchronous Ethernet. Use of low-cost 40 GbE/100 GbE multilane optical modules for STM-256/OTU3/OTU4 client side interfaces is supported by inversely multiplexing the OTU bit stream synchronously in 16 byte blocks, which are round robin distributed to the multiple lanes with lane rotation at each frame boundary. OTU3 is transported via four lanes of 10.755 Gb/s, while OTU4 is transported via four lanes of 27.952 Gb/s. This is reected in the logical structure of the OTN networking interface and the enhanced optical transport module, as illustrated in Figure 6.
Client Associated overhead Digital domain OH OH OH Client OPUk ODUk OTUk OCC OH OH OOS OSC OCC OMSn
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OTLOptical channel transport lane OTLCOptical transport lane carrier OTLCGOptical transport lane carrier group OTMOptical transport module OTNOptical transport network OTSOptical transmission section OTUOptical channel transport unit
Figure 6. OTN evolution: optical transport module multilane option.
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n FC PHY
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OChOptical channel ODUOCh data unit PHYPhysical layer TDMTime division multiplexing VLANVirtual local area network
Figure 7. Flexible ODU (ODUex).
The G.709 revision (October 2009) incorporates a exible ODU container (ODUex) friendly to packet transport for port and sub-port level grooming, as illustrated in Figure 7. In addition to transport of specific physical layer clients that are synchronously wrapped, this provides a scalable vehicle for transport of packet streams mapped into a exibly sized container using GFP-F [18]. Distinct from the xed size containers of foundation G.709, the ODUex enables service providers to allocate bandwidth as needed by each logical connection within a physical interface. While any bit rate is possible in principle, maximum efciency for ODUex carrying packets is achieved by choosing the size of the ODUex to ll an incremental number of tributary slots of the HO ODUk (k 2, 3, 4), which carries the ODUex. In the event that an ODUex is expected to traverse multiple different HO ODUk, then increments of the smallest tributary slot size of any HO ODUk in the path should be used. The ODUex is being developed in such a way that will not preclude the possible introduction of resizing functionality in case of GFP-F mapped packet streams.
A generic mapping procedure (GMP) has been introduced to provide a more exible way of mapping new clients into xed-size ODUs (e.g., ODU4) as well as mapping of LO ODUex and ODU2e into HO ODUk. GMP supports a wider range of client rate variations and bit rates than the asynchronous mapping procedure (AMP) of foundation OTN. GMP is capable of encapsulating any new LO ODUj into the 1.25 Gb/s tributary slot structure of the OTN. For example, ODU2e has a clock tolerance of 100 ppm and does not fit into a standard OTU2 but is mapped via GMP into 9 1.25 Gb/s tributary slots of an ODU3, or 8 1.25 Gb/s tributary slots of an ODU4.
OTN Network Architecture Enablers

Network operator architecture evolution is dependent upon a range of characteristics including service mix offered and relative dominance, scalability, reliability, technology breakthrough, manageability, and economic considerations. While no single future network architecture will meet every service
provider need, there are some unifying service provider objectives: Flexibility to govern the selection of technology, architecture, and products that facilitate cost effective and scalable solutions: Maximizing their network resource efciency considering the range of external users/clients for whom they are providing services. Allowing network optimization to be performed within their own administrative domain. Capability to offer managed services, which involves being able to: Validate SLA compliance with their customers, taking into account possible network and/or equipment fault conditions. Support interoperability with other operators, as needed, to realize an end-users request for services. Rely upon multi-vendor interoperability across one or more dimensions. Within the following sections, a description is provided of OTN capabilities that may be leveraged to satisfy the aforementioned objectives. Scalable Solutions Scalability reects a networks ability to grow in number of users, number of network nodes, geographic reach, and total bandwidth. The challenge is to achieve scalability within the connes of other network requirements, especially those pertaining to cost, performance, and reliability. From a technology perspective, OTN is characterized by a graceful mix of photonic and opto-electronic switching, which play complementary roles. In photonic switching, an optical signal transiting a network node is switched as a wavelength. Optimally suited for cases where the granularity of the service is close to the wavelength capacity, photonic switching is primarily used to provision and restore such lambda services. In electronic switching, an optical signal is terminated and the entire signal, or individual tributary slots contained in the signal, can be switched. Opto-electronic switching is primarily used to provision and restore sub-lambda services that consume less than a wavelength of bandwidth.
While photonic switches can be extremely low cost when a full wavelength can be switched, they do not allow access to any of the channel content. At the same time, state-of-the-art optical switching architectures are typically characterized by non-zero blocking probability. OEO points may then be leveraged to provide additional exibility for wavelength conversion, which becomes essential as network load and complexity increase. Additionally, when transmission impairments such as optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), dispersion, and non-linear effects accumulate after a substantial transmission distance, regeneration is required even if the channel does not need to be switched. Further, OEO points are used at operator domain borders in order to establish a quantiable assessment of the client signal quality. The contribution of the OTN to fostering scalability is elaborated in the sections that follow. Scalability offered by sub-lambda multiplexing. Technological changes coming in transmission, coupled with the continued growth in trafc, are motivating a migration to 100 G optical channel rates in core DWDM transport systems. In parallel, the line rate of interfaces interconnecting client devices to the optical transport network is growing from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s and now to 100 Gb/s. Such high transmission speeds, while reducing the number of interfaces installed at the edge of the transport network, in many instances provide a far higher capacity than the overall amount of bandwidth actually required for communication between peer client network elements: i.e., there will be many network connections that do not require a full optical channel (lambda). In reality, it can be expected that high-speed client interfaces will carry various trafc ows, each representing a logical channel between two different peering client network elements. Thus, while capable of supporting terabit networking, OTN serves as the convergence layer for transporting a wide range of services whose bit rates do not allow efcient usage of the entire bandwidth associated with a single lambda. Efcient transport of such line rates involves supporting sub-lambda multiplexing technologies on network elements located at the edge of the optical transport network. For example, instead of having a single interface that uses the entire available bandwidth, each port
Logical channel 1, VLAN X
Logical channel 1, VLAN X
Logical channel 2, VLAN Z
Logical channel 3, VLAN Y
Logical channel 2, VLAN Z OTNOptical transport network VLANVirtual local area network
Logical channel 3, VLAN Y
Figure 8. OTN interface channelization example.
could be partitioned into smaller data channels (interface channelization), each one building a logical point-to-point link between a virtually adjacent pair of peer routers as shown in Figure 8. Trafc belonging to the different logical channels may be distinguished within these transport network elements by looking at information located at layer 2 or below. VLAN tags are among the ideal candidates for layer 2 because of their scope being limited to a single physical interface, the presence of quality of service information, and the lack of control plane dependency between the router network and transport networks. Moreover, router manufacturers currently provide VLAN tags on Ethernet interfaces of any line rate. At the transport network boundary, all packets that transit on the same physical interface and carry the same VLAN tag identify a logical data channel whose maximum bandwidth can be, in the case of core and metro core networks, pre-calculated by means of trafc planning tools. A packet ow belonging to a logical data channel can then be transformed in a CBR ow and carried across the optical transport network by means of an ODU pipe whose bit rate is similar to the CBR ow rate, allowing the flow to be carried through the transport network using lower cost-per-bit layer 1 switching technologies.
Like SDH, foundation OTN supports flexible bandwidth allocation using virtual concatenation of a set of basic container sizes. Additionally, as discussed in OTN Evolution Dened, the ODUex container provides bandwidth exibility by leveraging tributary slot concatenation. The introduction of CBR channels supported by partitioning of client interfaces by means of VLAN tags enables the transport network to efciently allocate and route smaller router channels over larger bandwidth optical transport connections. With interface channelization, the OTN infrastructure is not articially constrained to transport/ switching of 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s, and 100 Gb/s pipes of large granularity. Thus, sub-lambda multiplexing leads to resource efciencies and cost savings. Scalability benets for IP over optical architectures. IP core networks are increasing both in node count and size, and it is generally accepted that IP over point-to-point DWDM does not scale because router throughput and port count increase in proportion to the overall trafc transmitted. Further, the through trafc is sometimes as high as 70 to 80 percent of the overall traffic [6]. The primary challenges faced in scaling new generations of routers to larger sizes relate to power and heat dissipation. This can even affect
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Demand spikes
All routers must upgrade to handle more through traffic
IP
DWDM P2P DWDM
IP
DWDM
= P2P DWDM with larger transport bandwidth
DWDMDense wavelength division multiplexing IPInternet Protocol P2PPoint-to-point
Figure 9. Scalability arising from client layer demand spikes.
the central ofce layout, as it may require increased spacing between racks to avoid violating the station cooling requirements. Performing routing only when actually needed (transit trafc off-load) reduces overall energy costs and environmental concerns, as the increased complexity of packet processing will always force a power and cost increment over equivalent bandwidth through the transport layer. Thus, it is more expensive to put 1 Gb/s through the service layer than the transport layer at any point in time. Hence, the service layer pass-through tax of using IP over point-to-point DWDM is becoming insupportable in terms of cost, power, and footprint. Consider the network example in Figure 9, illustrating an IP over point-to-point DWDM architecture, where certain nodes experience sudden spikes in demand, for example, when a major new customer comes online [22]. To handle the increased capacity, the client layer network must be upgraded, potentially including additional intermediate nodes to provide bandwidth management and survivability functions for the engineered routes. The underlying issue is that the client-layer logical topology is tied to the networks physical-link topology. This coupling leads to a de-optimization of the more complex IP/multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) transport layer at a time when there are growth and churn in new packet-based services.
Utilization of OTN offers the potential to reduce power levels, carbon footprint, and cost where transport functions sufce, especially at intermediate nodes along an end-to-end route, which minimizes the number of excursions up to the more complex service layer. A hierarchical approach, detailed in Figure 10, reduces overall network cost by enabling the service layer network to grow efciently, without requiring costly capacity upgrades at intermediate core routers, and only performing routing when really needed [22].
Controlled upgrades
Service layer
Optical transport network Optical transport networking
Figure 10. Networking scalability via hierarchy.
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Service provider E-NNI

Operator B
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Figure 11. Service provider without direct access to service edge.
Moreover, further cost reduction can be achieved by proactively adapting IP topologies as trafc warrants, making use of recongurable optical transport connections, which will be discussed in a later section. Finally, it is important to note that increasingly demanding real-time services (i.e., audio, video, images) present more challenges to the design of next-generation networks than do traditional data applications such as e-mail and Web. Although still bandwidth adaptive, these real-time services have stringent latency, packet delay variation, and packet loss requirements. Enabling carriage of transit trafc in the OTN layer offers a way to prevent long multihop cascades of routers, thus avoiding unnecessary delay, jitter, and network instability in case of catastrophic events. Meeting stringent multimedia service requirements is becoming a critical factor in determining the success of operators engaged in delivering high volumes of these services over complex network architectures. Thus, as a general engineering principle, it makes sense to decouple the services layer from the transport and keep transit trafc in the transport domain at the lowest possible layer. In reality, Figure 9 and Figure 10 are oversimplied, as they do not address the roles of the photonic and opto-electronic switching layer technologies, as discussed in the previous section.
Optimization for Multi-Domain/Multi-Carrier Applications Let us consider a realistic scenario in which several network operators are involved in the connection of a client data service between two endpoints, as shown in Figure 11. The multiple-carrier model is one where the service provider (represented as operator B) owns part of the transport path but does not have access to the edge(s) of the optical transport network. The customersupplier relationship is between the client data customer and service provider who holds the end-to-end contract with the customer; however, the service provider does not have a physical presence at the service edges. Since there are performance guarantees pursuant to this contract, there is a resulting SLA between the service demarcation points, denoted the user network interface (UNI). This service level agreement guarantees provider edge-to-provider edge performance. In order to complete the service offering, the service provider buys mapping/de-mapping functionality and optical transport connectivity from a carrier with a physical presence near the client data customer. The presence carriers wholesale their service to the service provider. This relationship requires another level of agreements at the demarcation between carriers, denoted the external network-network interface (E-NNI). OTN TCM, as described in Foundation OTN Structure and Format, explicitly provides the necessary
service demarcation capabilities allowing for SLA verification and fault localization among multiple domains, while retaining monitoring capabilities needed for fault sectionalization and restoration/ protection activities. Survivability One of the key challenges for next-generation networks is to bring the reliability of the circuit-based voice network to packet-based networks. Appropriately, many of todays problems with data-network reliability are being solved in the service layers themselves. But to maintain its performance and cost effectiveness, the service layer also needs to rely on the transport layer for the first line of defense against big-network faults, such as ber cuts. The fastest possible recovery from these optical-layer outages is especially important given the growing bandwidth and number of users per ber. OTN protection is, as for SDH/SONET, very fast and always provides acceptable transport layer recovery. In general, providing transport layer recovery as close as possible to the physical media layer tends to be most efcient as spare capacity over all the affected layers, and the number of transport entities involved, is minimized. OTN survivability. OTN currently supports shared and dedicated ODUk linear protection schemes, with the automatic protection switching (APS) protocol and protection switching operation as specified in ITU-T G.873.1 [11]. These schemes encompass ODUk subnetwork connection protection with: Inherent monitoring (1 1, 1:n), Non-intrusive monitoring (1 1), and Sublayer monitoring (1 1, 1:n). While standardization activity had been initiated on APS-based OTN ring protection (draft G.873.2), this work became dormant when the market stalled, and the draft Recommendation was not completed. Control plane-enabled OTN restoration schemes (ODUk and OCh) may also be supported, including mesh-based restoration. With the resurgence of standardization activities related to OTN evolution and photonic networking in general, it is expected that a resurgence of activities on OTN survivability will also occur. Survivability for IP over optical architectures. Multilayer survivability refers to the possible nesting of
survivability schemes among these layers, and the way in which these mechanisms may interact with each other. A coherent multi-layer survivability strategy enables the desired level of quality of service (QoS) and network bandwidth optimization and minimizes cost on a per-service basis. Within the context of multi-layer survivability, the most important parame-ters to focus upon are the fault type and the effect of this fault on the trafc. Faults such as physical medium faults, node faults, and some hardware faults affect all services in all the network layers and consequently have to be recovered from concurrently (and quickly). The effects of other types of hardware faults, provisioning errors, and performance degradations are often less catastrophic, as fewer services are affected or services are not all affected at the same time [2]. Single layer recovery can be performed in the transport layer as well as in the service layer. There are a number of trade-offs to be considered, which are typically application dependent. If we consider a scenario involving traditional IP/MPLS as the service and OTN as the transport, trafc impacted by a physical medium fault can be restored by the transport layer in larger granularity bundles, making the recovery approach more effective (especially for catastrophic faults like ber cuts) and simplifying network maintenance. Architectures focused upon IP/MPLS service layer protection provide service layer rerouting for all failures, including ber cuts and optical port failures. The intuitive appeal is that there is theoretically less need to reserve spare capacity in advance, and the statistical nature of the service layer means that any available protection route can be shared among many services. The disadvantage is that each incremental unit of capacity in the service layer is relatively more expensive, and it must be available in every intermediate hop. Support for service layer survivability also requires allocation of bandwidth in the transport layers. This bandwidth provides the alternative routes used by the service layer survivability mechanism, which may not be used for transport survivability. The total cost involved in this survivability solution is related to the total amount of bandwidth required in all the layers. The total amount of spare capacity required in the service layer may depend on the faults
IP/MPLS
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io ct te h o pr dt d wi re nd a Sh ba
IPInternet Protocol MPLSMultiprotocol label switching OTNOptical transport network
Figure 12. Efcient survivable transport networking with shared protection.
against which it has to protect, which may be large if the intention is to protect against catastrophic faults in this layer. Alternatively, providing a nested IP/MPLS and OTN multi-layer survivability solution that appropriately leverages OTN shared protection architectures is particularly valuable for the meshed trafc patterns found in core networks, where such capabilities are ideal. Figure 12 illustrates efcient survivable transport networking with shared protection [22]. Such architectures hold protection-capacity overbuilds to a minimum, on a par with that achieved by any realistic service-layer scheme, and they achieve this at a lower network cost. Thus, nesting IP/MPLS and OTN-based survivability mechanisms can be extremely attractive.
Role of Optical Control Plane

Optical transport is undergoing a critical transition in which the network is migrating from static to dynamic intelligent optical transport networking solutions. Improved network efficiency, operational improvements, and new revenue opportunities are some of the advantages linked to the migration from
static to dynamic intelligent optical transport networking solutions [21]. Optical control planeautomatically switched optical network/generalized multiprotocol label switching (ASON/GMPLS) enabled solutions [3, 13]simplify network operations by delegating several key operations support system (OSS) processes to the control plane for automation with the goal of a self-running network where the network is the database. Automated processes include network topology/ resources/services discovery, end-to-end optical connection routing for optimal resource utilization, owthrough service provisioning, and mesh restoration. Overall, the following benets are anticipated: Automation that results in reducing operating expenses (OPEX) by minimizing the manual and time-intensive procedures present in todays provisioning processes. CAPEX improvements due to elimination of stranded resources through high-quality inventory databases, populated by the optical control plane auto-discovery process. Increased optimized network-wide resource utilization resulting from more dynamic multi-layer
networking coupled with integrated trafc engineering solutions. Higher bandwidth-efciency transport via support for mesh topologies together with dynamic rerouting and restoration mechanisms. Network efciency improvement by ensuring ow-through interoperability across multi-vendor, multi-layer, and multi-regional networks by way of standardized signaling protocols and procedures. Provision of control plane-enabled protection and restoration schemes, increasing the solutions toolkit for meeting different customer needs, and improving network reliability and availability. Facilitation of multi-layer network engineering that enables an automated process of cooperatively tailoring the server layer capacity based on the network topology and resource-usage of the client layer. The ASON/GMPLS control plane complements management plane based solutions in providing the operator with enhanced capabilities. For example, the control plane relies upon management system conguration of some static trafc engineering data, which is useful for calculation of disjoint cost equivalent paths pertaining to shared risk link groups (SRLGs). In turn, the management plane leverages the control plane for periodic retrieval of actual traffic flows to be compared to nominal traffic flows when performing network re-optimization. Dynamically Congurable OTN Applications While technological innovations in optical networking have led to huge leaps in network capacity while driving down the cost per bit, these innovations matter little if the network capacity is unavailable for use when needed. In order to use network resources cost-efciently, carriers will need to ensure that the right amount of network capacity is allocated where the trafc demand resides in the network. In todays highly competitive environment, there is no tolerance for service provisioning delays. In fact, failure to deliver services faster than competitors can limit a carriers ability to compete for new services and ultimately can drive a carrier out of business. Compounding the dilemma, bandwidth consumers only want to pay for what they use and are
expressing more and more reluctance to sign longterm service contracts. In order to deal with these market pressures, carriers, in turn, are demanding network solutions that facilitate faster and more exible service delivery. The struggle lies in their ability to deliver, quickly and efciently, the managed-bandwidth services that best address their customers needs. Customers of managed bandwidth servicesenterprises, Internet service providers, applications service providers, and other carriersare looking for bandwidth services that more closely resemble their business needs. They require bandwidth without long lead provisioning times, available on an as-needed (bandwidth-ondemand) basis. They also require more exible bandwidth increments that allow them to purchase the quantity needed instead of being locked into fixed bandwidth chunks. Lastly, they require exibility in terms of their service contracts in the form of QoSbased pricing since they have varying service needs. Migrating to an intelligent and exible optical core network architecture will also support mesh topologies. As trafc continues to grow, mesh topologies are becoming more interesting to service operators. For high trafc density, mesh topologies provide for lower capital expenditures due to more efcient lling of direct shortest links. In this type of environment, ringbased networks require expensive and complex ring stacking. Also, in high trafc density growth environments, growth is easier in a mesh network, since only direct links are affected, versus entire rings. Finally, meshed networks enable simpler provisioning of circuits in comparison to the complex routing required for stacked interconnected rings [21]. (It should be noted that in areas of lower trafc density and lower connectivity, however, ring networks continue to provide an advantage, providing highly reliable transport that is well adapted to a feeder topology.) Optimized IP Over Optical Solutions Deployment of ASON/GMPLS-powered optical transport networking capabilities results in further reduction of cost per bit by enabling proactive adaptation of IP topologies as trafc warrants via reconfiguration of the underlying optical transport connections. As trafc between major core nodes consistently starts to consume substantive bandwidth,
direct links may be put in place. Evolving costoptimized topologies will result in a decreasing number of intermediate core router hops for high bandwidth traffic traversing long distances. The combination of adaptive topologies and more closely engineered router links results in cost per bit improvement as trafc grows. Multi-layer network engineering provides for the most optimized topologies. In this case, proactive prediction of IP trafc demands, coupled with ranking the most effective optical transport network conguration changes (consistent with the timescale of midterm packet traffic pattern variations to maintain packet network routing stability), can be used to drive where and when to trigger the appropriate addition, modification, or deletion of particular optical transport network connections [5] via optical control plane signaling and routing protocols. Bandwidth on demand (BoD) services may also be supported that assure optical transport network responsiveness to the needs of IP client customers. This involves subscription to a BoD service for a suite of connection services among a set of sites, which can be triggered via user network interface signaling [23, 24]. Examples of UNI service attributes include service level (class of service), directionality, diversity (node, link, SRLG, shared path), trafc parameters, and bandwidth modication support. This enables the IP clients to use UNI signaling (including attributes that describe the service requirements for the connection) to dial up the service between any two sites based upon their business needs, send information over the optical transport connection for an unspecied period of time, and then hang up.
Role of Emerging Technologies

OTN evolution is also assisted by underlying technology enablers, including advances in modulation formats, optical switching, high-speed electronics, and innovative approaches to photonic OAM. Modulation Formats For many years, ber has been considered an innite bandwidth medium. Approaching 10 Gb/s, some limitations have begun to appear, and more recently, moving to multi-lambda 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s transmission, bers are exhibiting impair184 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj
ments that call for much more sophisticated modulation schemes than the traditional simplistic on-off keying (OOK). Beyond that, multi-level modulation schemes are also needed in order to keep signal processing at acceptable rates and improve the spectral efciency, expressed in bit/s/Hz, as data rates increase. In fact, optical transmission is increasingly inheriting radio modulation formats and techniques, progressively moving from basic amplitude modulation with, for example, spectral efciency (SE) up to 0.4 bit/s/Hz, to a variety of more efcient phase modulation methods. These include differential phase modulation (DPSK) with, for example, SE from 0.4 to 0.8 bit/s/Hz, and quadrature modulations (QPSK, DQPSK) approaching 1 bit/s/Hz. These techniques can be further improved by dual polarization mixing (the spectral efciency of any modulation format is in this case doubled) and nally by coherent detection, as featured by more recent industrial implementation at 40 Gb/s. This is presumably not the end of the story, since coherent detection implies complex digital signal processing, which calls for very high speed analog-digital conversion of photo detector outputs, and in turn, opens the possibility of soft-decoding of FEC codes, and possibly also even more complex multi-level modulation formats with error correcting codes embedded in the signal space. Another key topic to be addressed is the effect of interference among signals characterized by different bit rates, which again may need further electronic countermeasures. In a nutshell, optical transmission techniques are evolving very rapidly, mainly via adoption of digital signal processing techniques that have been commonly employed in radio transmission for many years. These techniques are only now being adopted due to the requirements imposed by support for very high speed optical transmission (aiming at multi-lambda 100 Gb/s), in conjunction with the availability of unprecedented processing power in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) application-specic integrated circuits (ASICs) and applicationspecic standard products (ASSPs). Optical Switching In wavelength-routed networks, switching is performed through optical add/drop multiplexers
(OADMs) and PXCs supporting provisioning, protection, and restoration at the optical layer. Notable architectures and recent advances for supporting wavelength-routed networks include: ROADM architectures, which are characterized by two DWDM ports and N single wavelength add/ drop ports, enabling evolution of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems from point-topoint to ring or linear add/drop topologies. The rst to be available, they are usually realized in the eld using wavelength blocker or planar lightwave circuit technologies. They can be evolved to colorless (any multiple lambda from any port to any port) using tunable lters at the drop and tunable lasers at the add. 1 N wavelength selective switch (1 N WSS) ROADM architectures, which are characterized by N 1 DWDM ports. They can be used either for multidegree (mesh) connectivity or for channel add/drop (in a colorless way). Note that a degree N 1 node requires N 1 1 N WSS modules to support mesh connectivity alone.
Wavelength cross connect (WXC) architectures, which provide complete N N connectivity for mesh networks. For a degree N node and L wavelengths per ber, a WXC needs N demuxes, N muxes, and L N N switches). Despite these advances, barriers exist to establishing complex wavelength-routed networks in a purely photonic domain. For example, there is no commercially available technology to support photonic wavelength conversion or regeneration. Additionally, the intrinsically slow switching time of many solutions precludes satisfying traditional carrierclass 50 ms protection switching requirements. It therefore becomes interesting to explore hybrid photonic and electrical switching architectures that can provide selective wavelength regeneration/ conversion, while supporting the aggregation of connections at sub-wavelength granularity. As illustrated in Figure 13, the optical/electrical (O/E) converters can be seen as a pool of oating shared resources usable for any client as well as for any wavelength.
Photonic switching
1
XIN
2
XOUT
YIN
YOUT
ZIN
ZOUT
A/DOUT
N-1
A/DIN
O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E
O/E O/E
Electrical switching
O/E O/E O/E
A/DAdd/drop O/EOptical/electrical
Figure 13. Hybrid photonic and electrical switching architecture.
DOI: 10.1002/bltj
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This type of architecture provides the following benets: An O/E converter could be used as an adaptation device to convert the client signal into the appropriate DWDM line signal. Coupled with another O/E converter, and cross-connected over the electrical matrix, it offers regeneration and wavelength conversion. Support of multiple functions via one pool of shared resources allows for better resource utilization and reduces the need for accurate forecasts when designing the network. It offers the possibility of combining fast electronic protection switching, with the exibility of photonic restoration in mesh networks. Additionally, it enables efcient 1:N protection support against failures of client and line side optical devices. High-Speed Electronics High-speed and high-capacity electronic devices are key connection-routing technology enablers for OTN node ingress and egress signals at lambda and sub-lambda layers. Protocol-agnostic cross-point switches are devices with M inputs and N outputs where each channel operates independently (M N spatial matrix); they can be profitably used for regeneration and wavelength routing/conversion in systems working with lambda granularity and similar transparency attributes. The larger the matrix in a single device, the more signals can be routed without suffering from the cost and power dissipation penalty introduced by the interconnection technology. Single chip capacities in excess of 1.5 Tb/s, with bit rates of up to 11 Gb/s, can already be found on the market. However, purely spatial (asynchronous) architectures may be non-optimal for systems that also aggregate sub-lambda rate signals. For example, nodes that do grooming of LO ODUs (from ingress HO ODUs, cross-connecting them towards the desired outgoing HO ODUs) are typically based on non-blocking scalable synchronous matrices using time-based or time/space-based switching. Key technology building blocks for such architectures include CMOS ASIC and ASSP devices, which are able to provide fully nonblocking switching with finer service granularity
(down to 1 Gb/s) and a capacity exceeding 1 Tb/s per chip that can scale to multi-Tb/s when combining several devices together. Photonic OAM The OTN maintenance philosophy is a balanced combination of opto-electronic enabled maintenance (where opto-electronics are present), coupled with targeted OAM capabilities for the optically transparent segments. As discussed previously, only the functionality of lambda overhead (non-associated for single and aggregated channels) has been standardized, with the supporting OAM mechanisms yet to be provided. However, this does not preclude vendor provision of associated photonic overhead in the context of the IaDI. For example, it has been demonstrated (e.g., via Wavelength TrackerTM) that it is possible to support the following associated photonic overhead capabilities in networks of metro/regional scale that provide: Path trace management (continuity and connectivity supervision for path set-up with instant diagnostics in case of a failure): every optical channel is encoded with a unique tag to identify wavelength. Measurement of the optical power level of each individual channel in the WDM spectrum without embedded optical spectrum analyzers. In the near future, advances are expected that should enable supervision of the optical signal quality necessary for determining its performance (i.e., measurement of dispersion and OSNR) and extension of the range of applicability from metro to long haul/ultra long haul (LH/ULH) distances. Such associated information allows for comprehensive, yet simple and cost-effective, monitoring in many points of the network (e.g., amplier input/output, T/ROADM input/output, and multiplex input/output) without requiring opto-electronic signal termination. This enables, in a cost effective way, support for a wavelength management paradigm very similar to that for SDH/SONET and LO/HO ODU, where photonic OAM is closely coupled with the network management system (NMS) to facilitate ease of service commissioning, continuous monitoring of the networks optical health, and failure diagnosis from a remote network operations center (NOC).
Network Design and Optical Network Planning Tools Optical network evolution from point-to-point to mesh topologies is demanding increasing system automation (intelligence) of DWDM equipment for guaranteed system performance in any-to-any connectivity scenarios (optical power balance for channel add, removal or re-routing, enhanced resilience schemes, and other possibilities). Optical network design and planning tools have therefore become essential to operators for network design and optimization, as well as for an automated end-to-end connection setup, tear down, and restoration in case of failure. Automated design and engineering of a DWDM optical network. The DWDM link/network is automatically optimized and engineered, taking into account the physical topology and parameters of the ber infrastructure plus the features/capabilities of the WDM equipment. Traffic routing and wavelength assignment. Starting from the traffic demand on the given infrastructure, the planning of the network is carried out through aggregation of low rate traffic services (sub-lambda multiplexing), wavelength assignment, and routing of main and protection paths.
Optical Transport Network Infrastructure Evolution Vision

As described in [1], introduction of DWDM represented the first step towards optical networking because it employed wavelength-based transport. However, these backbone DWDM deployments were generally point-to-point (P2P) applications, with the necessary exibility for service multiplexing, aggregation, and networking provided by the underlying TDM systems. Operators regarded such optical networks simply as fat pipes connecting switching nodes. Primary applications in the eld falling into these categories are SDH/SONET over DWDM and IP/MPLS over DWDM. SDH/SONET over DWDM offered a more costeffective approach to core/long-haul capacity expansion than other alternatives, such as adding ber, or upgrading/replacing lower capacity TDM systems with new, higher-rate TDM systems. However, as described
in the earlier section Foundation OTN Problem Domain, SDH/SONET faced challenges introduced by new carriers carrier services, increasingly multidomain market environments, and deployment of photonic technology. IP/MPLS over (P2P) DWDM offered direct interconnection of IP/MPLS core routers, bypassing SDH/SONET standalone network elements, whose interface functionality was being increasingly subsumed within router edge ports. The appeal of IP over DWDM was in reducing the number of layers in the network infrastructure (replacing IP over SDH/SONET over DWDM by IP over DWDM). In reality, the number of layers remained the same, as IP over WDM was typically implemented as IP packets mapped into SDH/SONET, coupled with SDH/SONET-based pointto-point DWDM systems. So while SDH/SONET standalone network elements were not required, SDH/SONET remained an integral element of the data networking equipment interface [4]. The actual networking impact was limiting the number of potentially switchable layers, the implications of which were described earlier in the Scalability offered by sub-lambda multiplexing and Scalability benets for IP over optical architectures segments of the OTN Network Architecture Enablers section. Evolution to fully featured OTN facilitates evolution from point-to-point capacity expansion to scalable and robust optical transport networking applications, catering to the expanding range of layer 1 to layer 3 services (and including carriers carrier services). With service granularity moving from narrowband to broadband, OTN enables shifting the cross-connection granularity from VC-4/VC-11 or STS-1/VT 1.5 to ODU0/ODU1/ODU2/ODU3 and ODU4 to satisfy the grooming requirements of a new generation of Terabit machines targeted for optimization around the dominant Ethernet clients (GbE/10 GbE/40 GbE and 100 GbE). Encompassing both photonic (OCh) and electronic or circuit (ODU) transport entities, the emergent optical transport paradigm employs complementary application of photonic and opto-electronic technologies supporting: Photonic switching for an agile photonic layer, transparent to protocol and bit rates, providing
(a) Photonic switching node

HO ODU
HO-ODU
Switching/routing clients
OTU OCh
NE A
Clear channel clients OMS OTS

LO-ODU LO-ODU LO-ODU
LO-ODU
Sub level networking
(b) Photonic and electronic switching node

LO ODU
LO-ODU
HO-ODU HO-ODU HO-ODU HO-ODU
LO/HO ODU OTU
HO-ODU
HO-ODU
HO-ODU
level networking
HO-ODU
OCh OMS
NE B NE B
NE A
NE B
OTS
XC XC
NE A
XC XC XC XC XC XC XC XC
HOHigher order LOLower order NENetwork element OChOptical channel ODUOCh data unit
OMSOptical multiplex section OTNOptical transport network OTSOptical transmission section OTUOCh transport unit XCCross connect
Figure 14. OTN enabled multi-service core.
exibility by optical add/drop (ROADM/TOADM) capabilities at the lambda level. Provides the lowest cost for high bandwidth optical multiplexing on a ber and transparent pass-through, eliminating unnecessary OEO conversions and signal delay accumulation. Avoids need for intensive network lambda planning required to efciently deploy the rst generation of WDM network elements that were based on xed-OADM (i.e., to avoid blocking even in cases where capacity was
available, but the lambda was the wrong color). Opto-electronic switching for an agile sub-lambda layer, enabling aggregation and protection of trafc and avoiding stranded bandwidth, when the service granularity is less than the wavelength capacity. Enables optimization of overall network bandwidth allocation, by decoupling the service rate from the OTN line system capacity. Supports fast shared and dedicated protection solutions, as described in Scalability benets for IP over optical architectures, avoiding the
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high cost of 1 1 replication in the photonic domain. Building upon this paradigm, it is possible to realize the OTN vision of a multi-service core for any service (comprising IP and CBR clients) that can maximally leverage photonic technology evolution, while providing OAM capabilities meeting the high benchmark for reliability and operational simplicity that carriers have come to expect from SDH/SONET. This OTN-enabled multi-service core is illustrated in Figure 14, which shows a number of photonic domains interconnected by opto-electronic (gateway) nodes that subdivide the overall photonic infrastructure into
smaller regions. The two basic supporting node types are: Photonic switching nodes that are well suited to locations with large amounts of transit trafc having coarse granularity (OCh switching). Opto-electronic capable switching nodes, integrating photonic and electronic (LO ODU or service layer) switching, that are well suited to the aggregation and protection of sub-lambda granular services and/or in locations that process large amounts of add/drop trafc. Figure 15 illustrates the high-level architecture of these two OTN node types; their primary characteristics are summarized in Table II.
LO ODU
LO-ODU
HO ODU OTU
LO/HO ODU OTU OCh OMS OTS
HO-ODU
HO ODU OTU
HO-ODU
OCh OMS NE B OTS
NE A
OCh OMS OTS
Tunable TRP UNI-NNI
Tunable TRP NNI-NNI
Tunable TRP Tunable TRP
UNI-NNI
NNI-NNI
OTH XC (sub ) Tunable i/fs OEO
OEO
OEO
OEO
OEO
Tunable m-degree ROADM OOO
Tunable m-degree OADM OOO
HOHigher order LOLower order NENetwork element NNINetwork-network interface OADMOptical add/drop multiplexer OChOptical channel
ODUOptical data unit OEOOptical-electronic-optical OMSOptical multiplex section OOOOptical-optical-optical OTNOptical transport network OTSOptical transmission section
OTUOCh transport unit ROADMReconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexing TRPTotal radiated power UNIUser network interface XCCross connect
Figure 15. OTN node architectures.
DOI: 10.1002/bltj
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Table II.
High-level architecture and primary characteristics of OTN node types. Type A node (photonic switch) Switching Type B node (photonic and electronic switch) Switching Lambda (photonic) switching matrix WSS based OEO conversion for drop and back-to-back lambda regeneration and color conversion Electronic OTH switching/multiplexing Characteristics Characteristics End-to-end OAM TCM OAM G.709 (IrDI) Associated overhead (IaDI) 1 1 protection @ client or line (colored) interfaces l mesh restoration Fast protection/restoration via ODUk switching
Lambda (photonic) switching matrix WSS based OEO conversion for drop and back-to-back lambda regeneration and color conversion
End-to-end OAM TCM OAM
G.709 (IrDI) Associated overhead (IaDI) 1 1 protection @ client or line (colored) interfaces l mesh restoration
Resilience
Resilience
IaDIIntra-domain interface IrDIInter-domain interface OAMOperations, administration, and maintenance monitoring ODUOptical channel data unit OEOOptical-electronic-optical
OTHOptical transport hierarchy OTNOptical transport network TCMTandem connection WSSWavelength selective switch
Conclusions
With resurgence of industry interest in optical transport network evolution, the OTN is poised to truly emerge as the converged optical transport infrastructure solution offering carriers unprecedented architectural exibilitythe client protocol (and bit rate) independence, and service differentiation envisioned a decade ago [1]. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the many friends and colleagues in the Alcatel-Lucent community who have (in one way or another) contributed to the material presented in this paper. Special thanks are extended to Alberto Bellato, Pietro Grandi, Thomas Mueller, and Kevin Sparks. References [1] R. C. Alferness, P. A. Bonenfant, C. J. Newton, K. A. Sparks, and E. L. Varma, A Practical Vision for Optical Transport Networking, Bell Labs Tech. J., 4:1 (1999), 318.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6] [7]
Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, T1A1.2 Working Group on Network Survivability Performance, Technical Report on Enhanced Network Survivability Performance, ATIS T1.TR.68-2001, Feb. 2001. L. Berger (ed.), Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) SignalingResource ReserVation Protocol-Trafc Engineering (RSVP-TE) Extensions, IETF RFC 3473, Jan. 2003, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3473.txt . P. Bonenfant, A. Rodriguez-Moral, J. Manchester, and A. McGuire, IP over WDM: The Missing Link, Proc. National Fiber Optic Engineers Conf. (NFOEC 99) (Chicago, IL, 1999), pp. 97108. L. Cheng, J. Ellson, A. Jukan, P. Lamy, and E. Varma, Network EngineeringControl of Dynamic Link Topology in User Networks, Bell Labs Tech. J., 8:1 (2003), 207218. Cisco Systems, Converge IP and DWDM Layers in the Core Network, White Paper, 2007. J.-L. Ferrant, M. Gilson, S. Jobert, M. Mayer, M. Ouellette, L. Montini, S. Rodrigues, and S. Rufni, Synchronous Ethernet: A Method
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[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
to Transport Synchronization, IEEE Commun. Mag., 46:9 (2008), 126134. N. B. Gee, B. E. E. Basch, and S. Gringeri, 10 G LAN PHY over G.709 OTN: A Service Provider Prospective, Proc. Optical Fiber Commun./ National Fiber Optic Engineers Conf. (OFC/ NFOEC 08) (San Diego, CA, 2008), paper NWC1. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Amendment 1: Media Access Control (MAC) Parameters, Physical Layers, and Management Parameters for 10 Gb/s Operation, IEEE 802.3ae-2002, Aug. 2002. International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Architecture of Optical Transport Networks, ITU-T Rec. G.872, Nov. 2001, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.872/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Optical Transport Network (OTN): Linear Protection, ITU-T Rec. G.873.1, Mar. 2006, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.873.1/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS) for Virtual Concatenated Signals, ITU-T Rec. G.7042, Mar. 2006, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-RECG.7042/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Architecture for the Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON), ITU-T Rec. G.8080, June 2006, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-RECG.8080/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Characteristics of Optical Transport Network Hierarchy Equipment Functional Blocks, ITU-T Rec. G.798, Dec. 2006, http://www.itu .int/rec/T-REC-G.798/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Network Node Interface for the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), ITU-T Rec. G.707, Jan. 2007, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-RECG.707/en . International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Physical Transfer Functions of Optical Network Elements, ITU-T Rec. G.680, July 2007, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.680/en .
[17] International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Optical Transport Network Physical Layer Interfaces, ITU-T Rec. G.959.1, Mar. 2008, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.959.1/en . [18] International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), ITU-T Rec. G.7041, Oct. 2008, http://www.itu.int/rec/TREC-G.7041/en . [19] International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Transport of IEEE 10 G Base-R in Optical Transport Networks (OTN), ITU-T G.Sup43, Dec. 2008, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-RECG.Sup43/en . [20] International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Interfaces for the Optical Transport Network (OTN), ITU-T Rec. G.709 (2003) Amendment 3, Apr. 2009, http://www.itu.int/rec/T-RECG.709/en . [21] P. Lamy, H. Menendez, T. Mller, and E. L. Varma, Status and Perspectives for the Optical Control Plane, Bell Labs Tech. J., 11:2 (2006), 171189. [22] C. Newton, The Value of Transport Networking in a Data Centric World, Lucent Technologies White Paper, 1999. [23] Optical Internetworking Forum, RSVP Extensions for User Network Interface (UNI) 2.0 Signaling, OIF-UNI-02.0-RSVP, Feb. 25, 2008, http://www.oiforum.com/public/ documents/OIF-UNI-02.0-RSVP.pdf . [24] G. Swallow, J. Drake, H. Ishimatsu, and Y. Rekhter, Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) User-Network Interface (UNI): Resource ReserVation Protocol-Trafc Engineering (RSVP-TE) Support for the Overlay Model, IETF RFC 4208, Oct. 2005, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4208.txt . [25] S. J. Trowbridge, Appropriate Support for OTNBaseline Proposal, IEEE P802.3ba 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s Ethernet Task Force, 2008, http://www.ieee802.org/3/ba/ BaselineSummary_0908.pdf , slides 5869. [26] T. P. Walker and K. Kazi, Interfaces for Optical Transport Networks, Optical Networking Standards: A Comprehensive Guide for Professionals (K. Kazi, ed.), Springer, New York, 2006, pp. 63118.
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(Manuscript approved August 2009)

SILVANO FRIGERIO is a member of technical staff within the Alcatel-Lucent Optics Product Unit Chief Technology Ofce (CTO) in Vimercate, Italy. He received a degree in electronic engineering at the Politecnico of Milan, Italy. He has extensive experience as a system architect for optical multi-service nodes (OMSN) and as an SDH/SONET ASIC designer. As a member of the CTO Network Architecture & Engineering team, he is currently focusing upon aspects regarding multitechnology (hybrid) solutions and optical transport network (OTN) transformation at both the equipment and network levels. His professional interests encompass transport equipment system design, network developments, and convergence trends. Mr. Frigerio is an Alcatel-Lucent Italia TCT Principal Engineer and holds several patents concerning transmission networks. ALBERTO LOMETTI is network architecture director within the Chief Technology Ofce (CTO) organization of Alcatel-Lucents Optics Product Division in Vimercate, Italy. He received a diploma degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pavia, Italy. He has been with Alcatel-Lucent for over 20 years, spanning different technical experiences from board and ASIC design to system and network design. His current responsibilities include dening an overall optics network vision while designing coherent end-to-end, interworkable solutions across the division product portfolio. He is author or co-author of about 10 technical journal and conference papers and holds over 10 patents in various transmission elds. He was appointed a Bell Labs Fellow in 2007 and Alcatel-Lucent Italia Fellow in 2008. JUERGEN RAHN is a member of technical staff within the Alcatel-Lucent Optics/Cross Connects/ R& D/Architecture organization in Nrnberg, Germany. He received a Diplom-Ingenieur (FH) degree in electrical engineering at the Hochschule fr Technik Bremen, Germany, and subsequently a degree of Diplom-Ingenieur at the University of Bremen in electrical communications and high frequency techniques. He joined the optical development (at that time TeKaDe) in 1982. His current area of interest is networking of high capacity optical transport systems, and in this role he represents Alcatel-Lucent in OTN standardization and also as editor of OTN standards including G.798, OTN equipment, G.873.1, OTN linear protection, and G.8251, OTN synchronization.
STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE is a consulting member of technical staff within the Alcatel-Lucent Optics Product Organization Chief Technology Ofce (CTO) in Boulder, Colorado. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been with Alcatel-Lucent, originally having joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, for over 30 years. He has been contributing to global standards since 1995 and has been a key transport networking standardization leader across ITU-T, IEEE 802, ATIS OPTXS, and OIF. He is the chairman of ITU-T working party 3/15, responsible for transport network structures (including SDH, OTN, ASON, and packet transport). He is vice chairman of the ITU-T telecommunication standardization advisory group, chairman of the ATIS OPTXS-OHI (optical hierarchal interfaces) working group, and a member of the editorial team for the IEEE P802.3ba (40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s Ethernet) project. He has authored numerous papers and conference presentations including High Speed Ethernet Transport (IEEE Communications Magazine, December 2007) and served as co-author for a chapter within A Comprehensive Guide to Optical Networking for Professionals (Springer, 2006). He has helped foster cooperation across standards organizations by developing the procedure for handling liaison statements to and from the IETF (RFC 4053/BCP 103). EVE L. VARMA is director of standardization within the Alcatel-Lucent Optics Product Organization Chief Technology Ofce (CTO) in Murray Hill, New Jersey. She received an M.A. degree in physics from the City University of New York and has been with Alcatel-Lucent, originally having joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, for 30 years. She has been contributing to global standards since 1984 and continues to be actively engaged in supporting the development of specications relevant to transport networking solutions within global standards and industry fora spanning ITU-T, IETF, and OIF. Previous research experience includes specication of transmission jitter requirements, optical transport and its control and management, and associated enabling technology and methodology evolution. She has co-authored two books, Achieving Global Information Networking, Artech House (1999), and Jitter in Digital Transmission Systems, Artech House (1989), and co-authored two chapters in A Comprehensive Guide to Optical Networking for Professionals, Springer (2006). She is a Bell Labs Fellow and a member of the Alcatel-Lucent Technical Academy.
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Realizing the Optical Transport Networking Vision in the 100 Gb/s Era

Bell Labs Technical Journal

Network operator A domain

Network operator B domain

Network operator A domain

SDHSynchronous digital hierarchy SONETSynchronous optical network

Figure 1. Multi-operator network example.

Bell Labs Technical Journal

Foundation OTN Dened

Network operator B domain Domain 3

IaDI IaDIIntra-domain interface OTNOptical transport network

Figure 2. OTN interface classication.

Bell Labs Technical Journal

OTU, ODU, and OPU payload bit rate tolerance is

OTUOptical channel transport unit STMSynchronous transfer mode

Bell Labs Technical Journal

OTN ingress/egress client mapping

Protection supervision (TCM4)

Figure 4. OTN tandem connection monitoring levels.

OTN Evolution Dened

Bell Labs Technical Journal

LO ODU ODU0 ODU1

2009 standards agreements Non-normative (G.sup43) AMP/BMP

GMP OTU1 ODU3e1 OTU3e1 OTU2e

GFP data CBR10G 10GbE LAN 10GbE LAN CBR40G 40GbE

x4 ODU3 OTU3 ODU3e2 OTU3e2

Figure 5. OTN hierarchy evolution.

OCC OPS0 OPSMnk

Figure 6. OTN evolution: optical transport module multilane option.

Bell Labs Technical Journal

ODUk Circuit ODUflex

ODUflex Packet ODUflex

Figure 7. Flexible ODU (ODUex).

OTN Network Architecture Enablers

Logical channel 1, VLAN X

Logical channel 1, VLAN X

Logical channel 2, VLAN Z

Logical channel 3, VLAN Y

Logical channel 3, VLAN Y

Figure 8. OTN interface channelization example.

Bell Labs Technical Journal

All routers must upgrade to handle more through traffic

DWDM P2P DWDM

= P2P DWDM with larger transport bandwidth

DWDMDense wavelength division multiplexing IPInternet Protocol P2PPoint-to-point

Figure 9. Scalability arising from client layer demand spikes.

Optical transport network Optical transport networking

Figure 10. Networking scalability via hierarchy.

Bell Labs Technical Journal

Service provider E-NNI

G.709 Network (sub-lambda)

G.709 Network (sub-lambda)

G.709 Network (lambda)

G.709 Network (lambda)

G.709 Network (lambda)

UNI OTN network

E-NNIExternal network-network interface OTNOptical transport network UNIUser network interface

Figure 11. Service provider without direct access to service edge.

IPInternet Protocol MPLSMultiprotocol label switching OTNOptical transport network

Figure 12. Efcient survivable transport networking with shared protection.

Role of Optical Control Plane

Role of Emerging Technologies

O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E O/E