Ethernet Transport

______________________

White Paper

Siae Microeletttronica SpA

February 2007

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 INDEX

Introduction....................................................................................................................... 3
Ethernet Technology....................................................................................................... 3
Properties of an Ethernet................................................................................................. 4
Ethernet Frame Format ................................................................................................... 4
Media Access Control (MAC) service specification ...................................................... 5
Basic MAC frame format............................................................................................ 5
Tagged MAC Frame Format....................................................................................... 6
Packet Data Size ............................................................................................................. 7
IP Protocol ...................................................................................................................... 8
SIAE implementation ....................................................................................................... 9
QoS management ............................................................................................................ 9
VLAN stacking ............................................................................................................. 10
Packet size..................................................................................................................... 11
RMON........................................................................................................................... 11
GFP and LAP-S ............................................................................................................ 11
LCAS ............................................................................................................................ 11
PoE................................................................................................................................ 11
Abbreviations and acronyms ......................................................................................... 12

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Introduction
Ethernet is the most popular LAN switching technology invented in early 1970s. A
compatible IEEE standard exists called the 802.3 standard.

The 802.3 standard is a part of the IEEE 802 family, which provides a standard for the
structure of LAN MAC addresses; it provides a standard for the identification of public,
private, and standard protocols.
This family describes protocols and paradigms for local and metropolitan area networks.
The relationship between the standard 802.3 and other members of the family is shown
below:

This family of standards deals with the Physical and Data Link Layers as defined by the
ISO Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model (OSI). The access standards
define several types of “medium access” technologies and associated physical media,
each appropriate for particular applications or system objectives.

Ethernet Technology
The original Ethernet uses a coaxial cable called the 10Base5 or Ether. The complex
electronics needed for communication are present in the computer that connected to the
passive cable.

This shows the two main components that form a connection

between a computer’s bus and an Ethernet in the original scheme

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Several derivatives of the basic Ethernet technology exist.
In table below most important technologies are introduced.

Technology Meaning Media

Bit rate Max distance
10Base5 10 Mbps 500 m Thick coaxial cable
10Base2 10 Mbps 200 m Coax. RG-58 / RG-59 / RG-6 / RG-62 / RG-8
10BaseT 10 Mbps 100 ÷ 150 m Unshielded Twisted Pair ( UTP )
Shielded Twisted Pair ( STP )
10BaseF 10 Mbps 2 Km Multimode fibers for backbone
10BaseFL 10 Mbps 2 Km Multimode fibers for repeater interconnection
100BaseTx 100 Mbps 100 m 2 cable pair cat5 UTP e STP
1000BaseT 1 Gbps 100 m UTP cat 5
1000BaseSx 1 Gbps 300 m Multimode fibers with 850 nm wavelength
1000BaseLx 1 Gbps 5Km Singlemode fibers with 1300 nm wavelength

Properties of an Ethernet

Ethernet is a shared bus technology that supports broadcast. It is called shared as all the
computers that are connected to the Ethernet can access the Ethernet’s communication
channel. All others in the network receive a message sent by one computer.
On the other hand, it doesn’t provide any guarantee of message delivery. This is the
reason why higher layer protocol software uses its own reliability scheme to
accommodate Ethernet.
Ethernet uses the so-called Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection
(CSMA/CD) technology, which works with same idea. The time window, where carrier
can be detected, is named “Collision Domain”. Thus the length of an Ethernet cable is
limited by collision domain or by its attenuation, whichever shortest.

Collision Detection and Recovery: Since computers on Ethernet share a common

transmission medium, collisions occur if more than one computer transmits data
simultaneously. It is a property of the Ethernet cable to provide the computer the required
signalling, allowing it to detect whether the data signals it sent out got scrambled or not.
This property called the Collision Detection makes the controlling software to follow
back off schemes based on “random” retransmission delay generation.

Ethernet Frame Format

Ethernet defines standard frame formats, which are used in communication. They contain
a preamble, type field, data field, cyclic redundancy check, source and destination
addresses. The frame type field makes the packet self-identifying. This allows different

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higher layer protocols to use Ethernet. TCP/IP uses this feature to distinguish among
different protocols.

Format of a frame as it travels across an Ethernet

Media Access Control (MAC) service specification

Two frame formats are specified for data communication systems using the CSMA/CD
MAC:
• A basic MAC frame format, and
• An extension of the basic MAC frame format for Tagged MAC frames, i.e.,
frames that carry Qtag Prefixes.

Basic MAC frame format

Figure below shows the nine fields of a frame: the preamble, Start Frame Delimiter
(SFD), the addresses of the frame’s source and destination, the length or type field to
indicate the length or protocol type of the next field that contains the MAC Client data, a
field that contains padding if required, the frame check sequence field containing a cyclic
redundancy check value to detect errors in a received frame, and an extension field if
required (for 1000 Mb/s half duplex operation only).

Basic MAC frame format

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 Tagged MAC Frame Format

Following figure shows the format of a Tagged MAC Frame. This format is an extension
of the MAC Frame.

The extensions for tagging are as follows:

a) A 4-octet QTag Prefix is inserted between the end of the Source Address and the
MAC Client Length/Type field of the MAC frame. The QTag Prefix includes two
fields:
a1) a 2-octet constant Length/Type field value consistent with the Type
interpretation and equal to the value of the 802.1Q Tag Protocol Type.
a2) a 2-octet field containing Tag Control Information.

b) Following the QTag Prefix is the MAC Client Length/Type field, MAC Client
Data, Pad (if necessary), FCS, and Extension (if necessary) fields of the basic
MAC frame.

c) The length of the frame is extended by 4 octets by the QTag Prefix.

Tagged MAC frame format

The Tag Control Information field is subdivided as follows:

a) A 3-bit User Priority field (802.1p),
b) A Canonical Format Indicator (CFI), and
c) A 12-bit VLAN Identifier (802.1q).
The structure and semantics within the Tag Control Information field are defined in IEEE
P802.1Q.

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Note that the MAC Client Length/Type field contains the original Length/Type field of
the MAC frame prior to the insertion of the QTag Prefix. The QTag Prefix offsets this
field, exactly 4 octets from its original position in an untagged MAC frame.

Packet Data Size

The standard Ethernet packet size varies from 64 to 1518 bytes in length, excluding the
preamble, start delimiter, and end delimiter. The maximum transmission unit (MTU) is
sometimes expressed as 1500 bytes, but this excludes the destination and source address
fields (six bytes each), the length/type field (two bytes), and the four bytes of FCS.

Packets smaller than 64 bytes are known as “runt” packets. Those larger than 1518 bytes
(with the exceptions noted below) are described as oversized. The majority of Ethernet
implementations reject packets outside the 64-1518 bytes range.

As Ethernet data rates increased, vendors began to consider using Ethernet beyond the
LAN in metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks (WANs). The
conditions in these new environments prompted two changes in the Ethernet standards,
each one permitting longer packets.

The first change was the adoption of an optional set of fields in the Ethernet header to
accommodate virtual local area networks (VLANs). This method is covered in the IEEE
802.1Q and 802.3ac standards. The two fields increase the Ethernet MTU from 1518 to
1522 bytes for protocol stacks that support the new option. Packets that conform to this
standard are sometimes referred to as Baby Jumbo or Baby Giant frames.

Jumbo frames have a theoretical MTU of 9180 bytes. This is the largest packet size that
can be verified using a four byte FCS. The actual maximum depends on vendors’
implementations. The intermediate size is 4470 bytes, which is compatible with FDDI/IP.
Some vendors extend the limit up to 12000 Bytes. In networks with a very high data rate
(> 1 Gbps), the use of Jumbo packets can reduce overhead and improve throughput.

As a practical matter, the largest packets found on any network path tend to conform to
the smallest MTU permitted by any router or switch on that network path. Even on
Ethernet backbone segments that are "Jumbo clean" (where all connected devices are able
to send and receive Jumbo frames), it is not unusual to find very few, or even no frames
larger than 1518 bytes.

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IP Protocol

IP “Datagrams” are easily encapsulated in Ethernet packet as shown below. Note that two
versions of IP Datagram paradigm exist: IPv4, most popular, and IPv6, recently
introduced.

IPv4

IPv6

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SIAE implementation
QoS management

QoS refers to the ability of a network device to provide improved services to selected
network traffic over various underlying technologies including Ethernet and wireless
LANs. In particular, QoS features provide improved and more predictable network
service, as follows:
• Improving loss characteristics
• Avoiding and managing network congestion
• Prioritizing service to different kinds of network traffic
• Shaping network traffic
• Setting traffic priorities across the network
QoS is implemented in SIAE products using:
• VLAN per port
• Level 2 VLAN identifiers (802.1q)
• Level 2 priority bits (802.1p QoS)
• Level 3 priorities (ToS or DSCP)

VLAN per port: user defines fixed path.

Single Port Vlan

10/100 Mbit

1 4

2 5

3 6

VLAN per VID: Dynamic paths are defined by VID

Single Port Vlan 802.1q

10/100 Mbit

1 4

2 5

3 6
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Level 2 priorities:priority queues are introduced on switches output ports. 802.1p
describes 8 priority levels, mapped on 4 output queues.
A typical mapping scheme is the shown below.

802.1p priority levels Traffic type Used queue

0 Best Effort 0
1 Background
2 Not defined 1
3 Excellent Effort
4 Controlled Load 2
5 Video ( latency
≤ 100 mS )
6 Voice ( latency 3
≤ 10 mS )
7 Network Control

Two scheduling algorithms are available in SIAE equipments: strict or weighted

scheduling (SW selectable).

• Strict means that Higher priority queues are emptied first

• Weighted means that queues are served proportionally to their weights (1-2-4-8).

Level 3 priorities: priority levelsof DSCP field are also managed using subsets as in level
2 priorities. Differential Service Code Point is composed of 6 bits of “Service Type” field
of IP header.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

DSCP Not used in IPV4

Precedence bit 0-1-2 datagram priority

Delay bit 3 if a low delay is desired
Throughput bit 4 if high throughput is desired
Reliability bit 5 if high reliability is desired

Obviously level 2 and level 3 priority management are a mutually exclusive features.

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VLAN stacking
SIAE products support VLAN stacking (Q&Q). It means that if input traffic is 802.1q
compliant, i.e. VLAN are implemented, it is possible to create other VLAN inserting
other 4 bytes in Ethernet header for routing and QoS purposes.

Packet size
In addition to VLAN max packet size support, even in Q&Q version that implies 1526
bytes, oversized packets are managed by SIAE systems, up to 1632 bytes.

RMON
Remote Monitoring is a standard, used in telecommunications equipment, which
implement a MIB (Management Information Base).
It allows for remote monitoring and management of network equipment. RMON uses an
agent running on the device being monitored to supply information over SNMP to NMS.
The current RMON standard is RFC 2819.
SIAE equipments comply with group 1,2 and 3 of RFC mentioned above.

GFP and LAP-S

These protocols are used for encapsulating Ethernet Packets into SDH frame.
SIAE equipments use these standards for being able to guarantee to the customer
predictable performances.

LCAS
Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme is a method to dynamically increase or decrease the
bandwidth of virtual concatenated containers. ( specified in ITU-T G.7042).
It allows a provider to increase or decrease of the bandwidth of the virtual concatenated
group. This allows bandwidth-on-demand capability for data clients like Ethernet when
mapped into TDM containers.

PoE
Power over Ethernet technology, commonly referred to as IEEE 802.3af, describes a
system to transmit electrical power, along with data, to remote devices in an Ethernet
network.
This technology is similar to that one used for POTS telephones, which also receive
power and data (although analogue) through the same cable. It works with an unmodified
Ethernet cabling infrastructure. SIAE provides equipments with POE interface with
power consumption less than 25W.

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Abbreviations and acronyms
CFI Canonical Format Indicator (Annex F)
CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple Access With Collision Detection (ISO/IEC 8802-3)
FCS Frame Check Sequence (7.1)
FDDI Fibre Distributed Data Interface (ISO/IEC 9314)
LAN Local Area Network
LLC Logical Link Control (ISO/IEC 8802-2)
LS Least-Significant
MAC Medium Access Control, Media Access Control5
MAN Metropolitan Area Network
MS Most-Significant
NCFI Non-Canonical Format Indicator (Annex F)
PDU Protocol Data Unit
PID Protocol Identifier
OSI Open Systems Interconnection (ISO/IEC 7498-1)
SNAP Sub-Network Access Protocol
TCI Tag Control Information (9.3)
TPID Tag Protocol Identifier (9.3)
VID VLAN Identifier (7.1, 8.4.4, 9.3)
VLAN Virtual LAN (3.38)
WAN Wide Area Network

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