Optical Transmission Modes, Layers and Protocols: Synchronous Networks

Optical Transmission Modes, Layers
and Protocols
 Optical fiber network structures usually
incorporate complex combinations of both
optical and electronic infrastructure.
 In order to establish useful communication
among different network elements of the same
or other networks it is necessary to employ
certain physical network structures,
transmission types, rules and protocols.
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and Protocols
Synchronous Networks:
 In the European hierarchy, multiplexing is performed up to the
140 Mbits-1 rate from the constituent 2 Mbits-1 (30-channel)
signals.
 Difficulty arising is that: each 2 Mbit s-1 transmission circuit
(taking the European example) has its own independent clock
to provide for timing and synchronization.
 This results in slightly different frequencies occurring
throughout a network and is referred to as pleisochronous
transmission.
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and Protocols
Synchronous Networks:
 Although this strategy is well suited to the transport of bits it
suffers a major drawback in that in order to multiplex the
different levels (i.e. 2 to 8 to 34 to 140 Mbit s-1) extra bits
need to be inserted (bit stuffing) at each intermediate level so
as to maintain pleisochronous operation.
NOTE: Synchronous optical network recommendations tend to be

referred to as Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET) in
North America and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) in
Europe.
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and Protocols
Synchronous Networks – Standard:
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and Protocols
Asynchronous Transfer Mode:
 Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is a packetized multiplexing
and switching technique which seeks to combine the benefits of
packet switching and circuit switching.
 Asynchronous transfer mode transfers information in fixed
size units called cells where each cell contains the
information identifying the source of the transmission but
which generally contain less data than packets.
 Unlike the fixed time division multiplexed technique, where
each user waits to send in the allocated time slot, ATM is
asynchronous and therefore the time slots are made available
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on demand.

and Protocols
 To enable correct segmentation and assembly of different cells
at the destination, each cell contains significant information in
addition to data.
 An ATM cell comprises a header and payload data.
 It contains 48 bytes of data with 5 bytes of header
information.
 Each single byte in the header field includes different

information to identify destination, path, channel and the
30
error control bits.
and Protocols
 Before sending ATM cells carrying user data, a virtual
connection between source and destination has to be
established.
 All connections follow the same path within the network.
 During the connection setup each control bit (1 or 0) generates
an entry in the virtual path identifier (or virtual channel
identifier) translation table to inform the destination to receive
the incoming packet.
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and Protocols
OSI Reference Model:
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and Protocols
Optical Transport Network:
 An Optical Transport Network (OTN) is regarded as the set of
facilities using optical fiber interconnections to carry data
between network elements that switch or route the data from
different customers into the network.
 Specified in ITU-T Recommendation G.873.1 and it provides

for the transport, multiplexing, routing, supervision and
survivability for client signals.
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and Protocols
Optical Transport Network:
 ITU-T Recommendation G.709 provides information about
the hierarchical structure and interface functionalities of
the OTN by describing four layers which are:
 Optical Channel (OCh); *
 Optical Channel Transport unit (OTU); †
 Optical Channel Data unit (ODU); and
 Optical Channel Payload Unit (OPU).
* OChr – the letter r indicates a reduced functionality.

† OTUk – the letter k is used to describe a sublayer. 34
and Protocols
Internet Protocol (IP):
 The Internet Protocol (IP) is a network layer (i.e. layer 3
protocol in the OSI model) that contains both addressing and
control information to enable packets (or datagrams) to be
routed within a network.
 The Internet can be characterized as a logical architecture

(independent of any particular network) which can permit
multiple different networks to be interconnected enabling each
network node to communicate without the need to know which
network it is using or how to route information between them.
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and Protocols
36
and Protocols
 Three generic stages of deployment for optical IP networks
are:
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and Protocols
 The first generation used ATM to carry IP packets (i.e.
IP over ATM), has proved NOT to be an efficient
technique as compared with the direct use of
SDH/SONET.
 The ongoing IP revolution suggests that SDH/SONET
is not bandwidth efficient for IP packet transport.
 The realization of IP running directly on a DWDM
physical layer has thus become an important goal in
optical networking. 38
Wavelength Routing Networks
 The optical layer is based on wavelength-dependent
concepts when it lies directly above the physical layer.
 Hence the entire physical interconnected network

provides wavelength signal service among the nodes
using either single or multi-hop.
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Consider the following scenario:
Three network nodes are interconnected using two
wavelength channels (i.e. λ1 and λ2) where the solid line
connecting the nodes represents the available
wavelength channel and the dashed line identifies that
the wavelength channel is in use.
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41

 If the network node 1 is required to connect with node 3 then
as indicated in the Figure, there is no single wavelength
channel available to establish a light-path between them.
 When a light-path cannot be established on a link using a
single wavelength channel it is referred to as a wavelength
continuity constraint.
 A methodology to reduce this wavelength continuity constraint
is to switch the wavelength channel at node 2 by converting
the incoming wavelength λ2 to λ1 (which is available between
nodes 2 and 3) to enable a link between node 2 and 3 to be
established.
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 Wavelength conversion is required to convert from λ2 to a
compliant wavelength (i.e. λ1) at the output port of network
node 2 (which functions as an intermediate node) in order to
provide a path.
 Hence the newly set up path uses two wavelength stages (i.e.
two hops) to interconnect nodes 1 and 3.
 Such networks which employ wavelength conversion devices

(or switches) are known as wavelength convertible networks.
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Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA):
 In Dense WDM networks, a light-path is established by reserving a
particular wavelength on the physical links between the source and
destination edge nodes.
 Although there are various possible ways to determine the
selection of path and the allocation of wavelengths, they fall into
two basic categories of either sequential or combinational
selections.
 Each of these categories fundamentally addresses the core issue of
the wavelength continuity constraint.
44
Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA):
 The implementation of RWA can be static or dynamic
depending upon the traffic patterns in the network.
 Static RWA techniques are employed to provide a set of semi-
permanent connections, which remain active for a relatively
longer time.
 Dynamic RWA deals with establishing the lightpath in
frequently varying traffic patterns. In this case the traffic
patterns are not known and therefore the connection requests
are initiated in a random fashion, depending on the network
state at the time of a request.
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Optical Switching Networks

Optical switching can be classified into two categories:
- Circuit switching and
- Packet switching
Optical circuit-switched networks:

 In circuit-switched networks a connection is established using
available network resources for the full duration of the
transmission of a message.
 Once the complete message is successfully transmitted then
the connection is removed. 46
 A circuit-switched environment requires that an end-to-end
circuit be set up before the actual transmission can take place.
 A fixed share of network resources is then reserved for the

specific transmission which no other transmission can use.
 A request signal must, however, travel from the source to the

destination and it should also be acknowledged before the
transmission begins (Three-Way Handshake).
47
48
 The block diagram illustrates an optical circuit-switched (OCS)
network.
 In this configuration six optical nodes (i.e. a to f) are
interconnected and a requested logical connection or path for
optical signal wavelength, λ1, is established producing a circuit
path through network nodes a, b, d and f.
 Optical nodes of an OCS network contain optical switches
where large multiport optical switches (i.e. a switching fabric)
are used to establish connections between the desired input
and output ports.
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 Although different component enabling technologies can be
used to construct such optical switches, the basic optical
switching function remains the same.
 For example, a 2 × 2 optical switch at node b enables cross-
connection using ports 2 and 3, whereas node d employs a
direct connection for ports 1 and 3.
 A disadvantage of OCS is that it cannot efficiently handle
bursty traffic.
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Optical packet-switched networks:
 In an optical packet-switched (OPS) network data is
transported entirely in the optical domain without intermediate
optoelectrical conversions.
 An optical packet switch performs the four basic functions of:
 routing,
 forwarding,
 switching and
 buffering
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The routing function provides network connectivity information
often through pre-allocated routing tables.
Forwarding defines the output for each incoming packet (i.e.
based on a routing table).
The switch directs each packet to the correct output (i.e. defined
by the forwarding process).
Buffering provides data storage for packets to resolve any
contention problems which may occur during packet
transmission.
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Other Optical Switching that exist are:
 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
 Optical Burst Switching (OBS) Networks
Combining important aspects of optical circuit switching and

optical packet switching results in optical burst switching (OBS).
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