Layer 0(zero) merely introduces any latency to the network.
- It’s mostly the electronics that imparts latency in the network.
- The more we play with bit streams/signals ;more will be the latency.
- Most of the latency optimization happens in layer 1-3.
Future Transport Network Requirements:
General Causes of Bit Errors
- Performance degrade of key boards
- Abnormal optical power
- Signal-to-noise ratio decrease
- Non-linear factor
- Dispersion (chromatic dispersion/PMD) factor
- Optical reflection
- External factors (fiber, fiber jumper, power supply, environment and others)
As defined in G.709 an ODUk container consist of an OPUk (Optical Payload Unit) plus a specific ODUk Overhead (OH). OPUk OH information is added to the OPUk information payload to create anOPUk. It includes information to support the adaptation of client signals.Within the OPUk overhead there is the payload structure identifier (PSI) that includes the payload type (PT). The payload type (PT) is used to indicate the composition of the OPUk signal.
When an ODUj signal is multiplexed into an ODUk, the ODUj signal is first extended with frame alignment overhead and then mapped into an Optical channel Data Tributary Unit (ODTU). Two different types of ODTU are defined in G.709:
– ODTUjk ((j,k) = {(0,1), (1,2), (1,3), (2,3)}; ODTU01,ODTU12,ODTU13 and ODTU23) in which an ODUj signal is mapped via the asynchronous mapping procedure (AMP), defined in clause 19.5 of G.709.
– ODTUk.ts ((k,ts) = (2,1..8), (3,1..32), (4,1..80)) in which a lower order ODU (ODU0, ODU1, ODU2, ODU2e, ODU3, ODUflex) signal is mapped via the generic mapping procedure (GMP), defined in clause 19.6 of G.709.
When PT is assuming value 20 or 21,together with OPUk type (K=1,2,3,4), it is used to discriminate two different ODU multiplex structure ODTUGx :
– Value 20: supporting ODTUjk only,
– Value 21: supporting ODTUk.ts or ODTUk.ts and ODTUjk.
The discrimination is needed for OPUk with K =2 or 3, since OPU2 and OPU3 are able to support both the different ODU multiplex structures.For OPU4 and OPU1, only one type of ODTUG is supported: ODTUG4 with PT=21 and ODTUG1 with PT=20.The relationship between PT and TS granularity, is in the fact that the twodifferent ODTUGk discriminated by PT and OPUk are characterized by two different TS granularities of the relatedOPUk, the former at 2.5 Gbps, the latter at 1.25Gbps.
Auto-Negotiation for fiber optic media segments turned out to be sufficiently difficult to achieve that most Ethernet fiber optic segments do not support Auto-Negotiation. During the development of the Auto-Negotiation standard, attempts were made to de‐ velop a system of Auto-Negotiation signaling that would work on the 10BASE-FL and 100BASE-FX fiber optic media systems.
However, these two media systems use different wavelengths of light and different signal timing, and it was not possible to come up with an Auto-Negotiation signaling standard that would work on both. That’s why there is no IEEE standard Auto-Negotiation sup‐ port for these fiber optic link segments. The same issues apply to 10 Gigabit Ethernet segments, so there is no Auto-Negotiation system for fiber optic 10 Gigabit Ethernet media segments either.
The 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet standard, on the other hand, uses identical signal encoding on the three media systems defined in 1000BASE-X. This made it possible to develop an Auto-Negotiation system for the 1000BASE-X media types, as defined in Clause 37 of the IEEE 802.3 standard.
This lack of Auto-Negotiation on most fiber optic segments is not a major problem, given that Auto-Negotiation is not as useful on fiber optic segments as it is on twisted- pair desktop connections. For one thing, fiber optic segments are most often used as network backbone links, where the longer segment lengths supported by fiber optic media are most effective. Compared to the number of desktop connections, there are far fewer backbone links in most networks. Further, an installer working on the back‐ bone of the network can be expected to know which fiber optic media type is being connected and how it should be configured.
When Ethernet was developed it was recognized that the use of repeaters to connect segments to form a larger network would result in pulse regeneration delays that could adversely affect the probability of collisions. Thus, a limit was required on the number of repeaters that could be used to connect segments together. This limit in turn limited the number of segments that could be interconnected. A further limitation involved the number of populated segments that could be joined together, because stations on populated segments generate traffic that can cause collisions, whe reas non-populated segments are more suitable for extending the length of a network of interconnected segments. A result of the preceding was the ‘‘5-4-3 rule.’’ That rule specifies that a maximum of five Ethernet segments can be joined through the use of a maximum of four repeaters. In actuality, this part of the Ethernet rule really means that no two communicating Ethernet nodes can be more than two repeaters away from one another. Finally, the ‘‘three’’ in the rule denotes the maximum number of Ethernet segments that can be populated. Figure illustrates an example of the 5-4-3 rule for the original bus-based Ethernet.
The Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) is useful for testing the integrity of fiber optic cables. An optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) is an optoelectronic instrument used to characterize an optical fiber. An OTDR is the optical equivalent of an electronic time domain reflectometer. It injects a series of optical pulses into the fiber under test. It also extracts, from the same end of the fiber, light that is scattered (Rayleigh backscatter) or reflected back from points along the fiber. The strength of the return pulses is measured and integrated as a function of time, and plotted as a function of fiber length.
Using an OTDR, we can:
1. Measure the distance to a fusion splice, mechanical splice, connector, or significant bend in the fiber.
2. Measure the loss across a fusion splice, mechanical splice, connector, or significant bend in the fiber.
3. Measure the intrinsic loss due to mode-field diameter variations between two pieces of single-mode optical fiber connected by a splice or connector.
4. Determine the relative amount of offset and bending loss at a splice or connector joining two single-mode fibers.
5. Determine the physical offset at a splice or connector joining two pieces of single-mode fiber, when bending loss is insignificant.
6. Measure the optical return loss of discrete components, such as mechanical splices and connectors.
7. Measure the integrated return loss of a complete fiber-optic system.
8. Measure a fiber’s linearity, monitoring for such things as local mode-field pinch-off.
9. Measure the fiber slope, or fiber attenuation (typically expressed in dB/km).
10. Measure the link loss, or end-to-end loss of the fiber network.
11. Measure the relative numerical apertures of two fibers.
12. Make rudimentary measurements of a fiber’s chromatic dispersion.
13. Measure polarization mode dispersion.
14. Estimate the impact of reflections on transmitters and receivers in a fiber-optic system.
15. Provide active monitoring on live fiber-optic systems.
16. Compare previously installed waveforms to current traces.
The maintenance signals defined in [ITU-T G.709] provide network connection status information in the form of payload missing indication (PMI), backward error and defect indication (BEI, BDI), open connection indication (OCI), and link and tandem connection status information in the form of locked indication (LCK) and alarm indication signal (FDI, AIS).
Interaction diagrams are collected from ITU G.798 and OTN application note from IpLight
“In analog world the standard test message is the sine wave, followed by the two-tone signal for more rigorous tests. The property being optimized is generally signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Speech is interesting, but does not lend itself easily to mathematical analysis, or measurement.
ln digital world a binary sequence, with a known pattern of ‘ 1’ and ‘0’ , i s common . It i s more common to measure Bit error rates (BER) than SNR, and this is simplified by the fact that known binary sequences are easy to generate and reproduce. A common sequence is the pseudo random binary sequence.”
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“A PRBS (Pseudo Random Binary Sequence) is a binary PN (Pseudo-Noise) signal. The sequence of binary 1’s and 0’s exhibits certain randomness and auto-correlation properties.Bit-sequences like PRBS are used for testing transmission lines and transmission equipment because of their randomness properties.Simple bit-sequences are used to test the DC compatibility of transmission lines and transmission equipment.”
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Pseudo-Random-Bit-Sequence (PRBS) is used to simulate random data for transmission across the link.The different types of PRBS and the suggested data-rates for the different PRBS types are described in the ITU-T standards O.150, O.151, O.152 and O.153.In order to properly simulate real traffic, a pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) is also used. The rate of the PRBS can range between 2^-9 and 2^-31. Typically, for higher-bit-rate devices, a high-rate PBRS pattern is preferable so that the device under test is effectively stressed
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Bit-error measurements are an important means of assessing the performance of digital transmission. It is necessary to specify reproducible test sequences that simulate real traffic as closely as possible. Reproducible test sequences are also a prerequisite to perform end-to-end measurement. Pseudo-random bit sequences (PRBS) with lengths of 2n – 1 bits are the most common solution to this problem.
PRBS bit-pattern are generated in a linear feed-back shift-register. This is a shift-register with a xored– feedback of the output-values of specific flip-flops to the input of the first flip-flop.2*X (X = PRBS shift register length).
Example : PRBS-Generation of the sequence 2^9 -1 :
PRBS_TYPE
ERROR TYPE
Note:(PRBS) of order 31 (PRBS31), which is the inverted bit stream.
G(x) = 1 + x28 + x31 (1)
The advantage of using a PRBS pattern for BER testing is that it is a deterministic signal with properties similar to those of a random signal for the link , i. e. of white noise.
Bit error counting
Whereas a mask of the bit errors in the stream can be created by ANDing the received bytes after coalescing them with the locally generated PRBS31 pattern, counting the number of bits set in this mask in order to calculate the BER is a bit tricky. So we need to follow this
Typical links are designed for BERs better than 10-12
The Bit Error Ratio (BER) is often specified as a performance parameter of a transmission system, which needs to be verified during investigation. Designing an experiment to demonstrate adequate BER performance is not, however, as straightforward as it appears since the number of errors detected over a practical measurement time is generally small. It is, therefore, not sufficient to quote the BER as simply the ratio of the number of errors divided by the number of bits transmitted during the measurement period, instead some knowledge of the statistical nature of the error distribution must first be assumed.
The bit error rate (BER) is the most significant performance parameter of any digital communications system. It is a measure of the probability that any given bit will have been received in error. For example a standard maximum bit error rate specified for many systems is 10-9. This means that the receiver is allowed to generate a maximum of 1 error in every 109 bits of information transmitted or, putting it another way, the probability that any received bit is in error is 10-9.
The BER depends primarily on the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the received signal which in turn is determined by the transmitted signal power, the attenuation of the link, the link dispersion and the receiver noise. The S/N ratio is generally quoted for analog links while the bit-error-rate (BER) is used for digital links. BER is practically an inverse function of S/N. There must be a minimum power at the receiver to provide an acceptable S/N or BER. As the power increases, the BER or S/N improves until the signal becomes so high it overloads the receiver and receiver performance degrades rapidly.
The formula used to calculate residual BER assumes a gaussian error distribution:
C = 1 – e–nb
C = Degree of confidence required
(0.95 = 95% confidence)
n = No. of bits examined with no error found.
b = Upper bound on BER with a confidence C
(b = 10–15)
To determine the length of time, that is, the number of bits needed to test for (at a given bit rate), requires the above equation to be transposed:
n = loge(1 – C)/b
So, to test for a residual BER of 10–13 with a 95% confidence limit requires a test pattern equal to 3 x 1013 bits. This equates to only 0.72 hours using an OC-192c/STM-64c payload rather than 55.6 hours using an STS-3c/VC-4 bulk filled payload (149.76 Mb/s).The graph in Figure plots test time versus residual BER and shows the difference in test time for OC-192c/STM-64c payloads versus an OC-48c/STM-16c payload.The graphs are plotted for different confidence limits and they clearly indicate that the payload capacity is the dominant factor in improving the test time and not the confidence limit. Table 1 shows the exact test times for each BER threshold and confidence limit.
collected from::Product Note-OmniBER
FEC codes in optical communications are based on a class of codes know as Reed-Solomon.
A Reed-Solomon code is specified as RS (n, k), which means that the encoder takes k data bytes and adds parity bytes to make an n bytes codeword. A Reed-Solomon decoder can correct up to t bytes in the codeword, where 2t=n – k.
ITU recommendation G.975 proposes a Reed-Solomon (255, 239). In this case 16 extra bytes are appended to 239 information-bearing bytes. The bit rate increase is about 7% [(255-239)/239 = 0.066], the code can correct up to 8 byte errors [255-239/2 =8] and the coding gain can be demonstrated to be about 6dB.
The same Reed-Solomon coding (RS (255,239)) is recommended in ITU-T G.709. The coding overhead is again about 7% for a 6dB coding gain. Both G.975 and G.709 improve the efficiency of the Reed-Solomon by interleaving data from different codewords. The interleaving technique carries an advantage for burst errors, because the errors can be shared across many different codewords. In the interleaving approach lies the main difference between G.709 and G.975: G.709 interleave approach is fully standardized,while G.975 is not.
The actual G.975 data overhead includes also one bit for framing overhead, therefore the bit rate exp ansion is [(255-238)/238 = 0.071]. In G.709 the frame overhead is higher than in G.975, hence an even higher bit rate expansion. One byte error occurs when 1 bit in a byte is wrong or when all the bits in a byte are wrong. Example: RS (255,239) can correct 8 byte errors. In the worst case, 8 bit errors may occur, each in a separate byte so that the decoder corrects 8 bit errors. In the best case, 8 complete byte errors occur so that the decoder corrects 8 x 8 bit errors.
There are other, more powerful and complex RS variants (like for example concatenating two RS codes) capable of Coding Gain 2 or 3 dB higher than the ITU-T FEC codes, but at the expense of an increased bit rate (sometimes as much as 25%).
FOR OTN FRAME: Calculation of RS( n,k) is as follows:-
*OPU1 payload rate= 2.488 Gbps (OC48/STM16)
*Add OPU1 and ODU1 16 bytes overhead:
3808/16 = 238, (3808+16)/16 = 239
ODU1 rate: 2.488 x 239/238** ~ 2.499Gbps
*Add FEC
OTU1 rate: ODU1 x 255/239 = 2.488 x 239/238 x 255/239
=2.488 x 255/238 ~2.667Gbps
NOTE:4080/16=(255)
**Multiplicative factor is just a simple math :eg. for ODU1/OPU1=3824/3808={(239*16)/(238*16)}
Here value of multiplication factor will give the number of times for rise in the frame size after adding header/overhead.
As we are using Reed Soloman(255,239) i.e we are dividing 4080bytes in sixteen frames (The forward error correction for the OTU-k uses 16-byte interleaved codecs using a Reed- Solomon S(255,239) code. The RS(255,239) code operates on byte symbols.).
Hence 4080/16=255…I have understood it you need to do simpler maths to understand..)
Transparency here is transmission over network without altering original property of the client signal.
G.709 defines the OPUk which can contain the entire SDH signal. This means that one can transport 4 STM-16 signals in one OTU2 and not modify any of the SDH overhead.
Thus the transport of such client signals in the OTN is bit-transparent (i.e. the integrity of the whole client signal is maintained).
OTN is also timing transparent. The asynchronous mapping mode transfers the input timing (asynchronous mapping client) to the far end (asynchronous de-mapping client).
OTN is also delay transparent. For example if 4 STM-16 signals are mapped into ODU1’s and then multiplexed into an ODU2, their timing relationship is preserved until they are de-mapped back to ODU1’s.
Tandem Connection Monitoring (TCM)
Tandem system is also known as cascaded systems.
SDH monitoring is divided into section and path monitoring. A problem arises when you have “Carrier’s Carrier” situation where it is required to monitor a segment of the path that passes another carrier network.
Tandem Connection Monitoring
Here Operator A needs to have Operator B carries his signal. However he also needs a way of monitoring the signal as it passes through Operator B’s network. This is what a “Tandem connection” is. It is a layer between Line Monitoring and Path Monitoring. SDH was modified to allow a single Tandem connection. ITU-T rec. G.709 allows 6.
TCM1 is used by the User to monitor the Quality of Service (QoS) that they see. TCM2 is used by the first operator to monitor their end-to-end QoS. TCM3 is used by the various domains for Intra domain monitoring. Then TCM4 is used for protection monitoring by Operator B.
There is no standard on which TCM is used by whom. The operators have to have an agreement, so that they do not conflict.
TCM’s also support monitoring of ODUk connections for one or more of the following network applications (refer to ITU-T Rec. G.805 and ITU-T Rec. G.872):
– optical UNI to UNI tandem connection monitoring ; monitoring the ODUk connection through the public transport network (from public network ingress network termination to egress network termination)
– optical NNI to NNI tandem connection monitoring; monitoring the ODUk connection through the network of a network operator (from operator network ingress network termination to egress network termination)
– sub-layer monitoring for linear 1+1, 1:1 and 1:n optical channel sub-network connection protection switching, to determine the signal fail and signal degrade conditions
– sub-layer monitoring for optical channel shared protection ring (SPRING) protection switching, to determine the signal fail and signal degrade conditions
– Monitoring an optical channel tandem connection for the purpose of detecting a signal fail or signal degrade condition in a switched optical channel connection, to initiate automatic restoration of the connection during fault and error conditions in the network
– Monitoring an optical channel tandem connection for, e.g., fault localization or verification of delivered quality of service
A TCM field is assigned to a monitored connection. The number of monitored connections along an ODUk trail may vary between 0 and 6. Monitored connections can be nested, overlapping and/or cascaded.
ODUk monitored connections
Monitored connections A1-A2/B1-B2/C1-C2 and A1-A2/B3-B4 are nested, while monitored connections B1-B2/B3-B4 are cascaded.
Overlapping monitored connections are also supported.
Overlapping ODUk monitored connections
Channel Coding-A walkthrough
This article is just for revising Channel Coding concepts.
Channel coding is the process that transforms binary data bits into signal elements that can cross the transmission medium. In the simplest case, in a metallic wire a bi- nary 0 is represented by a lower voltage, and a binary 1 by a higher voltage. How- ever, before selecting a coding scheme it is necessary to identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of line codes:
- High-frequency components are not desirable because they require more chan- nel bandwidth, suffer more attenuation, and generate crosstalk in electrical links.
- Direct current (dc) components should be avoided because they require physi- cal coupling of transmission elements. Since the earth/ground potential usually varies between remote communication ends, dc provokes unwanted earth-re- turn loops.
- The use of alternating current (ac) signals permits a desirable physical isola- tion using condensers and transformers.
- Timing control permits the receiver to correctly identify each bit in the trans- mitted message. In synchronous transmission, the timing is referenced to the transmitter clock, which can be sent as a separate clock signal, or embedded into the line code. If the second option is used, then the receiver can extract its clock from the incoming data stream thereby avoiding the installation of an additional line.
Figure 1.1: Line encoding technologies. AMI and HDB3 are usual in electrical signals, while CMI is often used in optical signals.
In order to meet these requirements, line coding is needed before the signal is trans- mitted, along with the corresponding decoding process at the receiving end. There are a number of different line codes that apply to digital transmission, the most widely used ones are alternate mark inversion (AMI), high-density bipolar three ze- ros (HDB3), and coded mark inverted (CMI).
Nonreturn to zero
Nonreturn to zero (NRZ) is a simple method consisting of assigning the bit “1” to the positive value of the signal amplitude (voltage), and the bit “0” to the nega- tive value (see Figure 1.1 ). There are two serious disadvantages to this:
No timing information is included in the signal, which means that synchronism can easily be lost if, for instance, a long sequence of zeros is being received.
The spectrum of the signal includes a dc component.
Alternate mark inversion
Alternate mark inversion (AMI) is a transmission code, also known as pseudo- ternary, in which a “0” bit is transmitted as a null voltage and the “1” bits are represented alternately as positive and negative voltage. The digital signal coded in AMI is characterized as follows (see Figure 1.1):
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-
-
-
-
- The dc component of its spectrum is null.
- It does not solve the problem of loss of synchronization with long sequences of zeros.
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Bit eight-zero suppression
Bit eight-zero suppression (B8ZS) is a line code in which bipolar violations are de- liberately inserted if the user data contains a string of eight or more consecutive ze- ros. The objective is to ensure a sufficient number of transitions to maintain the synchronization when the user data stream contains a large number of consecutive zeros (see Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2).
The coding has the following characteristics:
The coding has the following characteristics:
- The timing information is preserved by embedding it in the line signal, even when long sequences of zeros are transmitted, which allows the clock to be re- covered properly on reception
- The dc component of a signal that is coded in B8Z3 is null.
Figure 1.2 B8ZS and HDB3 coding. Bipolar violations are: V+ a positive level and V- negative.
High-density bipolar three zeroes
High-density bipolar three zeroes (HDB3) is similar to B8ZS, but limits the maxi- mum number of transmitted consecutive zeros to three (see Figure 1.5). The basic idea consists of replacing a series of four bits that are equal to “0” with a code word “000V” or “B00V,” where “V” is a pulse that violates the AMI law of alternate po- larity, and B it is for balancing the polarity.
- “B00V” is used when, until the previous pulse, the coded signal presents a dc component that is not null (the number of positive pulses is not compensated by the number of negative pulses).
- “000V” is used under the same conditions as above, when, until the previous pulse, the dc component is null (see Figure 1.6).
- The pulse “B” (for balancing), which respects the AMI alternation rule and has positive or negative polarity, ensuring that two consecutive “V” pulses will have different polarity.
Coded mark inverted
The coded mark inverted (CMI) code, also based on AMI, is used instead of HDB3 at high transmission rates, because of the greater simplicity of CMI coding and de- coding circuits compared to the HDB3 for these rates. In this case, a “1” is transmit- ted according to the AMI rule of alternate polarity, with a negative level of voltage during the first half of the period of the pulse, and a positive level in the second half. The CMI code has the following characteristics (see Figure 1.1):
- The spectrum of a CMI signal cancels out the components at very low frequencies.
- It allows for the clock to be recovered properly, like the HDB3 code.
- The bandwidth is greater than that of the spectrum of the same signal coded in AMI.
Rejuvenating PCM:Pulse Code Modulation
This article consists the very basic of PCM(Pulse Code Modulation).i.e foundation for Telecom Networks.
The pulse code modulation (PCM) technology (see Figure 1.1) was patented and developed in France in 1938, but could not be used because suitable technology was not available until World War II. This came about with the arrival of digital systems in the 1960s, when improving the performance of communications net- works became a real possibility. However, this technology was not completely adopted until the mid-1970s, due to the large amount of analog systems already in place and the high cost of digital systems, as semiconductors were very expensive. PCM’s initial goal was that of converting an analog voice telephone channel into a digital one based on the sampling theorem.
The sampling theorem states that for digitalization without information loss, the sampling frequency (fs) should be at least twice the maximum frequency component (fmax) of the analog information:
fs > 2 × fmax
The frequency 2·fmax is called the Nyquist sampling rate. The sampling theorem is considered to have been articulated by Nyquist in 1928, and mathematically prov- en by Shannon in 1949. Some books use the term Nyquist sampling theorem, and others use Shannon sampling theorem. They are in fact the same theorem.
PCM involves three phases: sampling, encoding, and quantization:
In sampling, values are taken from the analog signal every 1/fs seconds (the sampling period).
Quantization assigns these samples a value by approximation, and in accordance with a quantization curve (i.e., A-law of ITU-T).
Encoding provides the binary value of each quantified sample.
If SDH is based on node and signal synchronization, why do fluctuations occur?Very general question for a Optics beginner.
The answer lies in the practical limitations of synchronization. SDH networks use high-quality clocks feeding network el- ements. However, we must consider the following:
- A number of SDH islands use their own reference clocks, which may be nominally identical, but never exactly the same.
- Cross services carried by two or more operators always generate offset and clock fluctuations whenever a common reference clock is not used.
- Inside an SDH network, different types of breakdown may occur and cause a temporary loss of synchronization. When a node switches over to a secondary clock reference, it may be different from the original, and it could even be the internal clock of the node.
- Jitter and wander effects
SDH/SONET:Maintenance and Performance Events
We know SDH/SONET is older technology now but just have a glimpse for the revision of basic FM process:
SDH SONET MAINTENANCE
SDH and SONET transmission systems are robust and reliable; however they are vulnerable to several effects that may cause malfunction. These effects can be clas- sified as follows:
- Natural causes: This include thermal noise, always present in regeneration systems; solar radiation; humidity and Raleigh fading in radio systems; hardware aging; degraded lasers; degradation of electric connections; and electrostatic discharge.
- A network design pitfall: Bit errors due to bad synchronization in SDH. Timing loops may collapse a transmission network partially, or even completely.
- Human intervention: This includes fiber cuts, electrostatic discharges, power failure, and topology modifications.
Anomalies and defects management. (In regular characters for SDH; in italic for SONET.)
All these may produce changes in performance, and eventually collapse transmission services.
SDH/SONET Events
SDH/SONET events are classified as anomalies, defects, damage, failures, and alarms depending on how they affect the service:
- Anomaly: This is the smallest disagreement that can be observed between mea- sured and expected characteristics. It could for instance be a bit error. If a single anomaly occurs, the service will not be interrupted. Anomalies are used to monitor performance and detect defects.
Defect: A defect level is reached when the density of anomalies is high enough to interrupt a function. Defects are used as input for performance monitoring, to con- trol consequent actions, and to determine fault causes.
- Damage or fault: This is produced when a function cannot finish a requested action. This situation does not comprise incapacities caused by preventive maintenance.
- Failure: Here, the fault cause has persisted long enough so that the ability of an item to perform a required function may be terminated. Protection mechanisms can now be activated.
- Alarm: This is a human-observable indication that draws attention to a failure (detected fault), usually giving an indication of the depth of the damage. For example, a light emitting diode (LED), a siren, or an e-mail.
- Indication: Here events are notified upstream to the peer layer for performance monitoring and eventually to request an action or a human intervention that can fix the situation .
Errors reflect anomalies, and alarms show defects. Terminology here is often used in a confusing way, in the sense that people may talk about errors but actually refer to anomalies, or use the word, “alarm” to refer to a defect.
OAM management. Signals are sent downstream and upstream when events are detected at the LP edge (1, 2); HP edge (3, 4); MS edge (5, 6); and RS edge (7, 8).
In order to support a single-end operation the defect status and the number of detected bit errors are sent back to the far-end termination by means of indications such an RDI, REI, or RFI
Monitoring Events
SDH frames contain a lot of overhead information to monitor and manage events When events are detected, overhead channels are used to notify peer layers to run network protection procedures or evaluate performance. Messages are also sent to higher layers to indicate the local detection of a service affecting fault to the far-end terminations.
Defects trigger a sequence of upstream messages using G1 and V2 bytes. Down- stream AIS signals are sent to indicate service unavailability. When defects are detected, upstream indications are sent to register and troubleshoot causes.
Event Tables
PERFORMANCE MONITORING
SDH has performance monitoring capabilities based on bit error monitoring. A bit parity is calculated for all bits of the previous frame, and the result is sent as over- head. The far-end element repeats the calculation and compares it with the received
overhead. If the result is equal, there is considered to be no bit error; otherwise, a bit error indication is sent to the peer end.
A defect is understood as any serious or persistent event that holds up the transmission service. SDH defect processing reports and locates failures in either the complete end-to-end circuit (HP-RDI, LP-RDI) or on a specific multiplex section between adjacent SDH nodes (MS-RDI)
Alarm indication signal
An alarm indication signal (AIS) is activated under standardized criteria, and sent downstream in a path in the client layer to the next NE to inform about the event. The AIS will arrive finally at the NE at which that path terminates, where the client layer interfaces with the SDH network .
As an answer to a received AIS, a remote defect indication is sent backwards. An RDI is indicated in a specific byte, while an AIS is a sequence of “1s” in the payload space. The permanent sequence of “1s” tells the receiver that a defect affects the service, and no information can be provided.
Depending on which service is affected, the AIS signal adopts several forms:-
- MS-AIS: All bits except for the RSOH are set to the binary value “1.”
- AU-AIS: All bits of the administrative unit are set to “1” but the RSOH and MSOH maintain their codification.
- TU-AIS: All bits in the tributary unit are set to “1,” but the unaffected tributar- ies and the RSOH and MSOH maintain their codification.
- PDH-AIS: All the bits in the tributary are “1.”
Enhanced remote defect indication
Enhanced remote defect indication (E-RDI) provides the SDH network with addi- tional information about the defect cause by means of differentiating:
- Server defects: like AIS and LOP;
- Connectivity defects: like TIM and UNEQ;
- Payload defects: like PLM.
Enhanced RDI information is codified in G1 (bits 5-7) or in k4 (bits 5-7), depending on the path.
Many times we heard that we should implement Unidirectional or Bidirectional APS in the network.Just some of the advantages of these are:-
Unidirectional and bidirectional protection switching
Possible advantages of unidirectional protection switching include:
- Unidirectional protection switching is a simple scheme to implement and does not require a protocol.
- Unidirectional protection switching can be faster than bidirectional protection switching because it does not require a protocol.
- Under multiple failure conditions there is a greater chance of restoring traffic by protection switching if unidirectional protection switching is used, than if bidirectional protection switching is used.
Possible advantages of bidirectional protection switching when uniform routing is used include:
- With bidirectional protection switching operation, the same equipment is used for both directions of transmission after a failure. The number of breaks due to single failures will be less than if the path is delivered using the different equipment.
- With bidirectional protection switching, if there is a fault in one path of the network, transmission of both paths between the affected nodes is switched to the alternative direction around the network. No traffic is then transmitted over the faulty section of the network and so it can be repaired without further protection switching.
- Bidirectional protection switching is easier to manage because both directions of transmission use the same equipments along the full length of the trail.
- Bidirectional protection switching maintains equal delays for both directions of transmission. This may be important where there is a significant imbalance in the length of the trails e.g. transoceanic links where one trail is via a satellite link and the other via a cable link.
- Bidirectional protection switching also has the ability to carry extra traffic on the protection path.
@above is extracted form ITU-G.*841
1.OverView
Availability is a probabilistic measure of the length of time a system or network is functioning.
- Generally calculated as a percentage, e.g. 99.999% (referred to as 5 nines up time) is carrier grade availability.
- A network has a high availability when downtime / repair times are minimal.
- For example, high availability networks are down for minutes, where low availability networks are down for hours.
- Unavailability is the percentage of time a system is not functioning or downtime and is generally expressed in minutes.
- Unavailability = (1 – Availability)*365*24*60
- Unavailability(U)=MTTR/MTBF
- The unavailability of a 99.999% available system is 5.3 minutes per year.
- Availability is generally measured as either failure rates or mean time before failure (MTBF).
- Availability calculations always assume a bi-directional system.
2.Circuit vs. Nodal Availability
Circuit and nodal availability measure different quantities. To help explain this clearly un-availability (Unavailability=1-Availablity) will be used in this section.
- Circuit un-availability is a measure of the average down time of a traffic demand / service.
- A circuit is un-available only if traffic affecting components that help transport the demand / service have failed.
- Circuit unavailability is calculated by considering the unavailabilities of components which are traffic affecting and by taking into consideration those components that are hardware protected.
- For example, the failure of both 10G line cards on an NE can cause a traffic outage.
- Nodal un-availability is a measure of the average down time of a node.
- Each time there is a failure in a node, regardless if it is traffic affecting or not, an engineer is required to visit the node to fix the failure.
- Therefore nodal un-availability is based on calculated failure rates, it is still a direct measure of an operational expenditure.
- Nodal unavailability is calculated by adding all components of a network element regardless of hardware protection, i.e. in series.
- For example, failure of a protected switch card is non-traffic affecting but still requires a site visit to be replaced.
3.Terms & Definitions
Failure rate
- Failure rate is usually measured as Failures in Time (FIT), where one FIT equals a single failure in one billion (109) hours of operation.
- FITs are calculated according to industry standard (Telcordia SR 332).
MTBF- (Mean time between failure)
- Average time between failures for a given component.
- Measured either in hours or years.
- MTBF is inversely proportional to FITs.
MTTR-(Mean time to repair)
- Average time to repair a given failure.
- Measured in hours.
- Availability is always quoted in terms of number of nines
- For example, carrier grade is 5 9’s, which is 99.999%
- Availability is better understood in terms of unavailability in minutes per year
- Therefore for an availability of 99.999%, the unavailability or downtime is 5.3 minutes per year
- Packet Switching Capable (PSC) layer
- Layer-2 Switching Capable (L2SC) layer
- Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) layer
- Lambda Switching Capable (LSC) layer
- Fiber-Switch Capable (FSC)
And as per Layered architectures concepts ;above technologies are correlated as:-
- Layer 3 for PSC (IP Routing)
- Layer 2.5 for PSC (MPLS)
- Layer 2 for L2SC (often Ethernet)
- Layer 1.5 for TDM (often SONET/SDH)
- Layer 1 for LSC (often WDM switch elements)
- Layer 0 for FSC (often port switching devices based on optical or mechanical technologies)
**********************************************************************************************
In a “N” Layered Network Architecture, the services are grouped in a hierarchy of layers
– Layer N uses services of layer N-1
– Layer N provides services to layer N+1
A communication layer is completely defined by
(a) A peer protocol which specifies how entities at layer-N communicate.
(b) The service interface which specifies how adjacent layers at the same system communicate
When talking about two adjacent layers,
(a) the higher layer is a service user, and
(b) the lower layer is a service provider
– The communication between entities at the same layer is logical
– The physical flow of data is vertical.
Just prior to transmission, the entire SONET signal, with the exception of the framing bytes and the section trace byte, is scrambled. Scrambling randomizes the bit stream is order to provide sufficient 0–>1 and 1–>0 transitions for the receiver to derive a clock with which to receive the digital information.
Actually every add/drop multiplexer sample incoming bits according to a particular clock frequency. Now this clock frequency is recovered by using transitions between 1s and 0s in the incoming OC-N signal. Suppose, incoming bit stream contains long strings of all 1s or all 0s. Then clock recovery would be difficult. So to enable clock recovery at the receiver such long strings of all 1s or 0s are avoided. This is achieved by a process called Scrambling.
Scrambler is designed as shown in the figure given below:-
It is a frame synchronous scrambler of sequence length 127. The generating polynomial is 1+x6+x7. The scrambler shall be reset to ‘1111111’ on the most significant byte following Z0 byte in the Nth STS-1. That bit and all subsequent bits to be scrambled shall be added, modulo 2, to the output from the x7 position of the scrambler, as shown in Figure above.Example:
The first 127 bits are:
111111100000010000011000010100 011110010001011001110101001111 010000011100010010011011010110 110111101100011010010111011100 0101010
The same operation is used for descrambling. For example, the input data is 000000000001111111111.
00000000001111111111 <-- input data 11111110000001000001 <-- scramble sequence -------------------- <-- exclusive OR (scramble operation) 11111110001110111110 <-- scrambled data 11111110000001000001 <-- scramble sequence -------------------- <-- exclusive OR (descramble operation) 00000000001111111111 <-- original data
The framing bytes A1 and A2, Section Trace byte J0 and Section Growth byte Z0 are not scrambled to avoid possibility that bytes in the frame might duplicate A1/A2 and cause an error in framing. The receiver searches for A1/A2 bits pattern in multiple consecutive frames, allowing the receiver to gain bit and byte synchronization. Once bit synchronization is gained, everything is done, from there on, on byte boundaries – SONET/SDH is byte synchronous, not bit synchronous.
An identical operation called descrambling is done at the receiver to retrieve the bits.
Scrambling is performed by XORing the data signal with a pseudo-random bit sequence generated by the scrambler polynomial indicated above. The scrambler is frame synchronous, which means that it starts every frame in the same state.
Descrambling is performed by the receiver by XORing the received signal with the same pseudo random bit sequence. Note that since the scrambler is frame synchronous, the receiver must have found the frame alignment before the signal can be descrambled. That is why the frame bytes(A1A2) are not scrambled.
References:http://www.electrosofts.com/sonet/scrambling.html
Frequency justification and pointers:+/-ve Stuffing mechanism in SONET/SDH
When the input data has a rate lower than the output data rate of a multiplexer, the positive stuffing will occur. The input is stored in a buffer at a rate which is controlled by the WRITE clock. Since the output (READ) clock rate is higher than the WRITE clock rate, the buffer content will be depleted or emptied. To avoid this condition, the buffer fill is constantly monitored and compared to a threshold. If the the content fill is below a threshold, the READ clock is inhibited and stuffed bit is inserted to the output stream. Meanwhile, the input data stream is still filling the buffer. The stuffed bit location information must be transmitted to the receiver so that the receiver can remove the stuffed bit.
When the input data has a rate higher than the output data rate of a multiplexer, the negative stuffing will occur. If negative stuffing occur, the extra data can be transmitted through an other channel. The receiver must need to kown how to retrieve the data.
Positive Stuffing
If the frame rate of the STS SPE is too slow with respect to the frame rate then the alignment of the envelope should periodically slip back or the pointer should be incremented by one periodically. This operation is indicated by inverting the I bits of the 10 bit pointer. The byte right after the H3 byte is the stuff byte and should be ignored. The following frames should contain the new pointer. For example, the 10 bit of the H1 and H2 pointer bytes has the value of ‘0010010011’ for STS-1 frame N.
Frame # IDIDIDIDID ---------------------- N 0010010011 N+1 1000111001 <-- the I bits are inverted, positive stuffing is required. N+2 0010010100 <-- the pointer is increased by 1
Negative Stuffing
If the frame rate of the STS SPE is too fast with respect to the frame rate then the alignment of the envelope should periodically advance or the pointer should be decremented by one periodically. This operation is indicated by inverting the D bits of the 10 bit pointer. The H3 byte is containing actual data. The following frames should contain the new pointer. For example, the 10 bit of the H1 and H2 pointer bytes has the value of ‘0010010011’ for STS-1 frame N.
Frame # IDIDIDIDID ---------------------- N 0010010011 N+1 0111000110 <-- the D bits are inverted, negative stuffing is required. N+2 0010010010 <-- the pointer is decreased by 1
Network Operation Center
A network operations center (NOC, pronounced like the word knock), also known as a “network management center”, is one or more locations from which network monitoring and control, or network management, is exercised over a computer, telecommunication orsatellite network.
NOCs are implemented by business organizations, public utilities, universities, and government agencies that oversee complex networking environments that require high availability. NOC personnel are responsible for monitoring one or many networks for certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid degraded service. Organizations may operate more than one NOC, either to manage different networks or to provide geographic redundancy in the event of one site becoming unavailable.
In addition to monitoring internal and external networks of related infrastructure, NOCs can monitor social networks to get a head-start on disruptive events.
NOCs analyze problems, perform troubleshooting, communicate with site technicians and other NOCs, and track problems through resolution. When necessary, NOCs escalate problems to the appropriate stakeholders. For severe conditions that are impossible to anticipate, such as a power failure or a cut optical fiber cable, NOCs have procedures in place to immediately contact technicians to remedy the problem.
Primary responsibilities of NOC personnel may include:
- Network monitoring
- Incident response
- Communications management
- Reporting
NOCs often escalate issues in a hierarchic manner, so if an issue is not resolved in a specific time frame, the next level is informed to speed up problem remediation. NOCs sometimes have multiple tiers of personnel, which define how experienced and/or skilled a NOC technician is. A newly hired NOC technician might be considered a “tier 1”, whereas a technician that has several years of experience may be considered “tier 3” or “tier 4”. As such, some problems are escalated within a NOC before a site technician or other network engineer is contacted.
NOC personnel may perform extra duties; a network with equipment in public areas (such as a mobile network Base Transceiver Station) may be required to have a telephone number attached to the equipment for emergencies; as the NOC may be the only continuously staffed part of the business, these calls will often be answered there.
A Network Operations Center rests at the heart of every telecom network or major data center, a place to keep an eye on everything.
Some of these NOCs are really “dressed to impress”, while others have taken a more mundane approach.
So, for inspiration, here is a set of pictures of different NOCs from telecom companies and data centers (and one content delivery network) that we here at Pingdom have collected from around the internet.
Dressed to impress
These NOCs are obviously designed to impress visitors on top of being useful. Also NOC constitutes the best Technical Experts of Networks as it acts as a heart for the network operations to run and to make human life more comfortable.
See the glimpse of some world’s best NOC across world!
Airtel Network Experience Center,Gurgaon,India
Reliance Communications’ NOC in India
AT&T’s Global NOC in Bedminster, New Jersey
Lucent’s Network Reliability Center in Aurora, Colorado (1998-99)
Conexim’s NOC in Australia
Akamai’s NOC in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Slightly more discreet
While still impressive on a smaller scale, these NOCs have taken a slightly more conventional approach. We noticed a divide here. Data centers tend to have more scaled-back NOCs while telecom companies often fall in the “dressed to impress” category, perhaps partly due to having more infrastructure to monitor than the average data center (and shareholders).
Easy CGI’s NOC in Pearl River, New York
Ensynch’s NOC in Tempe, Arizona
TWAREN’s NOC (Taiwan Advanced Research & Education Network)
The Planet’s NOC in Houston, Texas
KDL’s NOC in Evansville, Indiana
And the not-flashy-in-the-least award goes to…
Some of the small NOC’s could be seen as
Image sources:
AT&T NOC from AT&T, Reliance NOC from Suraj, Lucent NOC from Evans Consoles, Conexim NOC from Conexim, Akamai NOC from Akamai via Bert Boerland’s blog, Easy CGI NOC from Easy CGI, Ensynch NOC from Ensynch, TWAREN NOC from TWAREN, The Planet NOC from The Planet’s blog, Rackspace NOC from Naveenium, KDL NOC from Kentucky Data Link.
http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/05/21/gallery-of-network-operations-centers/
Here we will discuss what are the advantages of OTN(Optical Transport Network) over SDH/SONET.
The OTN architecture concept was developed by the ITU-T initially a decade ago, to build upon the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) and Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (DWDM) experience and provide bit rate efficiency, resiliency and management at high capacity. OTN therefore looks a lot like Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) / SDH in structure, with less overhead and more management features.
It is a common misconception that OTN is just SDH with a few insignificant changes. Although the multiplexing structure and terminology look the same, the changes in OTN have a great impact on its use in, for example, a multi-vendor, multi-domain environment. OTN was created to be a carrier technology, which is why emphasis was put on enhancing transparency, reach, scalability and monitoring of signals carried over large distances and through several administrative and vendor domains.
The advantages of OTN compared to SDH are mainly related to the introduction of the following changes:
Transparent Client Signals:
In OTN the Optical Channel Payload Unit-k (OPUk) container is defined to include the entire SONET/SDH and Ethernet signal, including associated overhead bytes, which is why no modification of the overhead is required when transporting through OTN. This allows the end user to view exactly what was transmitted at the far end and decreases the complexity of troubleshooting as transport and client protocols aren’t the same technology.
OTN uses asynchronous mapping and demapping of client signals, which is another reason why OTN is timing transparent.
Better Forward Error Correction:
OTN has increased the number of bytes reserved for Forward Error Correction (FEC), allowing a theoretical improvement of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) by 6.2 dB. This improvement can be used to enhance the optical systems in the following areas:
- Increase the reach of optical systems by increasing span length or increasing the number of spans.
- Increase the number of channels in the optical systems, as the required power theoretical has been lowered 6.2 dB, thus also reducing the non- linear effects, which are dependent on the total power in the system.
- The increased power budget can ease the introduction of transparent optical network elements, which can’t be introduced without a penalty. These elements include Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (OADMs), Photonic Cross Connects (PXCs), splitters, etc., which are fundamental for the evolution from point-to-point optical networks to meshed ones.
- The FEC part of OTN has been utilised on the line side of DWDM transponders for at least the last 5 years, allowing a significant increase in reach/capacity.
Better scalability:
The old transport technologies like SONET/SDH were created to carry voice circuits, which is why the granularity was very dense – down to 1.5 Mb/s. OTN is designed to carry a payload of greater bulk, which is why the granularity is coarser and the multiplexing structure less complicated.
Tandem Connection Monitoring:
The introduction of additional (six) Tandem Connection Monitoring (TCM) combined with the decoupling of transport and payload protocols allow a significant improvement in monitoring signals that are transported through several administrative domains, e.g. a meshed network topology where the signals are transported through several other operators before reaching the end users.
In a multi-domain scenario – “a classic carrier’s carrier scenario”, where the originating domain can’t ensure performance or even monitor the signal when it passes to another domain – TCM introduces a performance monitoring layer between line and path monitoring allowing each involved network to be monitored, thus reducing the complexity of troubleshooting as performance data is accessible for each individual part of the route.
Also a major drawback with regards to SDH is that a lot of capacity during packet transport is wasted in overhead and stuffing, which can also create delays in the transmission, leading to problems for the end application, especially if it is designed for asynchronous, bursty communications behavior. This over-complexity is probably one of the reasons why the evolution of SDH has stopped at STM 256 (40 Gbps).
References: OTN and NG-OTN: Overview by GEANT
What is Q-factor ?
A Q-factor measurement occupies an intermediate position between the classical optical parameters (power, OSNR, and wavelength) and the digital end-to-end performance parameters based on BER.A Q-factor is measured in the time domain by analyzing the statistics of the pulse shape of the optical signal. A Q-factor is a comprehensive measure for the signal quality of an optical channel taking into account the effects of noise, filtering, and linear/non-linear distortions on the pulse shape, which is not possible with simple optical parameters alone.
Definition 1:
The Q-factor, a function of the OSNR, provides a qualitative description of the receiver performance. The Q-factor suggests the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required to obtain a specific BER for a given signal. OSNR is measured in decibels. The higher the bit rate, the higher the OSNR ratio required. For OC-192 transmissions, the OSNR should be at least 27 to 31 dB compared to 18 to 21 dB for OC-48.
Definition 2:
The Quality factor is a measure of how noisy a pulse is for diagnostic purposes. The eye pattern oscilloscope will typically generate a report that shows what the Q factor number is. The Q factor is defined as shown in the figure: the difference of the mean values of the two signal levels (level for a “1” bit and level for a “0” bit) divided by the sum of the noise standard deviations at the two signal levels. A larger number in the result means that the pulse is relatively free from noise.
Definition 3:
Q is defined as follows: The ratio between the sums of the distance from the decision point within the eye (D) to each edge of the eye, and the sum of the RMS noise on each edge of the eye.
This definition can be derived from the following definition, which in turn comes from ITU-T G.976 (ref. 3).
where m1,0 are the mean positions of each rail of the eye, and s1,0 are the S.D., or RMS noise, present on each of these rails.
For an illustration of where these values lie within the eye see the following figure:
As Q is a ratio it is reported as a unit-less positive value greater than 1 (Q>1). A Q of 1 represents complete closure of the received optical eye. To give some idea of the associated raw BER a Q of 6 corresponds to a raw BER of 10-9.
Q factor as defined in ITU-T G.976
The Q factor is the signal-to-noise ratio at the decision circuit in voltage or current units, and is typically expressed by:
where µ1,0, is the mean value of the marks/spaces voltages or currents, and s1,0 is the standard deviation.
The mathematic relations to BER when the threshold is set to the optimum value are:
(A-2)
with:
The Q factor can be written in terms of decibels rather than in linear values:
Calculation of Q-Factor from OSNR
The OSNR is the most important parameter that is associated with a given optical signal. It is a measurable (practical) quantity for a given network, and it can be calculated from the given system parameters. The following sections show you how to calculate OSNR. This section discusses the relationship of OSNR to the Q-factor.
The logarithmic value of Q (in dB) is related to the OSNR by following Equation
In the equation, B0 is the optical bandwidth of the end device (photodetector) and Bc is the electrical bandwidth of the receiver filter.
Therefore, Q(dB) is shown in
In other words, Q is somewhat proportional to the OSNR. Generally, noise calculations are performed by optical spectrum analyzers (OSAs) or sampling oscilloscopes, and these measurements are carried over a particular measuring range of Bm. Typically, Bmis approximately 0.1 nm or 12.5 GHz for a given OSA. From Equation showing Q in dB in terms of OSNR, it can be understood that if B0 < Bc, then OSNR (dB )> Q (dB). For practical designs OSNR(dB) > Q(dB), by at least 1–2 dB. Typically, while designing a high-bit rate system, the margin at the receiver is approximately 2 dB, such that Q is about 2 dB smaller than OSNR (dB).
The Q-Factor, is in fact a metric to identify the attenuation in the receiving signal and determine a potential LOS and it is an estimate of the Optical-Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (OSNR) at the optical receiver. As attenuation in the receiving signal increases, the dBQ value drops and vice-versa. Hence a drop in the dBQ value can mean that there is an increase in the Pre FEC BER, and a possible LOS could occur if the problem is not corrected in time.
Reference:
ITU-T G.976
Below table summarizes the different fiber transmission phenomenon and their associated
impairments in Optical Telecommunication Systems.
What is an eye diagram?
An eye diagram is an overlay of all possible received bit sequences, e.g. the sum of…
Note: should really be an overlap of “infinitely long” bit sequences to get a true eye. This catches all potential inter-symbol interference
results in…
(the above is considered to be an “open” eye)
Eye diagrams can be used to evaluate distortion in the received signal, e.g. a “closed” eye
Note:More the wide open eye more the network is error-free
SDH & SONET conversion deliverables: Number of Equivalent Voice Channels, SONET Virtual Tributary, SDH Virtual Container, SONET Carrier, SDH Carrier & Administrative Unit.