SONET

Patel Akshat

(09 ec 11)

What is SONET ?

SONET stands for Synchronous Optical Network.

is a standard for optical telecommunications transport formulated by the Exchange Carriers Standards Association (ECSA) for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) It defines optical carrier (OC) levels and electrically equivalent synchronous transport signals (STSs) for the fiber-opticbased transmission hierarchy.

SONET Hierarchy

The lowest level or base signal is referred to as STS -1 i.e. Synchronous Transport Signal level -1 which operates at 51.840Mbps. Higher-level signals are integer multiples of STS -1. STS N signal is composed of N byte-interleaved STS -1 signals.

SONET Layers

Photonic, which corresponds to the OSI's physical layer, defines the optical equipment's attributes (OC-n.) Section, the frame format and certain low-level signal definitions, roughly corresponding to the OSI link layer. Line, the way in which lower-level frames are synchronized and combined into higher levels; can be sort of looked as parts of the network and transport layers. The line layer also defines data channels carrying operations, administration, maintenance and provisioning (OAM&P) information, which would be an application layer in an OSI modeled network.

Path, the end-to-end transport of a circuit, which also has application information (performance monitoring, status, tracing) for management.

Frame Format Structure

The frame can be divided into two main areas: Transport overhead and Synchronous Payload envelope (SPE). The SPE can also be divided into two parts: STS path overhead and the payload.

STS -1 Frame Format

STS -1 Synchronous Payload Envelope (SPE)

SONET Overhead (Contd)

Section overhead: 9 bytes per frame Includes two framing bytes, plus other control information for maintenance and provisioning Line overhead: 18 bytes per frame Control info, plus 9 bytes for data channel Path overhead: variable size Payload type, path status, etc. Transmitted as part of payload itself (SPE)

Overhead Layers

Path-level overhead is carried from end-to-end. Line overhead is for the STS-N signal between STS-N multiplexers. Section overhead is used for communications between adjacent network elements, such as regenerators.

Pointers

PointerSPE Position in the STS1 Frame

SONET uses a concept called pointers to compensate for frequency and phase variations. i.e. if there are any frequency or phase variations between STS-1 frame and its SPE, the pointer value will be increased or decreased accordingly to maintain synchronization.

SONET multiplexing Hierarchy

The STS Synchronous Payload Envelope can be sub-divided into smaller components or structures known as Virtual Tributaries (VTs), for the purpose of transporting and switching payloads smaller than the STS-1 rate. All services below DS3 rate are transported in the VT structure. The figure illustrates the basic multiplexing structure of SONET.

SONET and ATM

SONET and ATM The 53-byte ATM cells are simply packaged into the SPE portion of the STS1 frame, as they fit Cells may wrap across STS-1 overhead bytes, or even STS-1 frame boundaries Overhead byte keeps track of where ATM cell boundaries lie

STS-1 ATM Example

90 columns

9 rows

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Start of ATM Cells

Section and Line Overhead

SONET Framing Structure

Basic module is STS-1 Synchronous Transport Signal, Level 1 STS-1 corresponds to 51.84 Mbps
Frame structure: 9 rows of 90 columns of 8-bit bytes8000 frames/sec (125 usec/frame)

SST-1 Framing
to rightBytes are transmitted one row at a time, from left Note: 1 byte/frame = 64 kbps Remaining 87 columns are for the Synchronous Payload Envelope (SPE) First three columns of STS-1 frame are for section overhead and line overhead

Summary
SONET defines a standard for framing and transmission at the physical layer on fiber-optic based networks Framing structure is designed to accommodate common telco channel rates in both North America and Europe ATM cells can be layered on top of the (synchronous) SONET framing structure

Future

Large amount of traffic

Viable technologies atm,giga ethernet. Future voice and data broadband

Application

Public telephone network

Long distance voice traffic transmission Internet protocol packets

Thank you