ABSTRACT

Over the past 25 years, networks have evolved from being relatively static with fairly homogeneous traffic to being more configurable and carrying a heterogeneous array of services. As the applications are ultimately the driver of network evolution, the paper begins with a brief history of circuit, packet, and wave services, along with the development of the corresponding transport layers. The discussion then moves to the evolution of network-node architecture, with an emphasis on the optical-electricaloptical and optical-bypass paradigms. Scalability and cost-effectiveness in meeting network demands are two key factors in the discussion. The evolution of networking equipment, along with the development of the optical control plane, has facilitated a configurable optical layer. The enabling technologies, along with their ramifications, are discussed. Finally, the paper speculates on how capacity might evolve in the future, to handle the undoubtedly new services that are on the horizon.

Table of contents:
1. INTRODUCTION 2. OPTICAL MEDIA A.THE OPTICAL FIBER 3. MULTIMODE AND SINGLE-MODE FIBER 4. WAVELENGTH DIVISION MULTIPLEXING 5. EVOLUTION OF OPTICAL NETWORKING A. INTELLIGENT OPTICAL NETWORKS B. MULTILAYER OPTICAL NETWORKS C. EXAMPLES 6. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION 7. PARAMETERS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE A. THE IMPACT OF TRANSPARENCY B. BER(BIT ERROR RATE) MEASUREMENT C. OPTICAL TRACE D. ALARM MANAGEMENT E. DATA COMMUNICATION NETWORK (DCN) AND SIGNALING F. POLICING G. OPTICAL SUPERVISORY CHANNEL H. CLIENT LAYERS 8.ADVANTAGES 9.LIMITATIONS CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY

Performance Analysis of Multilayer Optical Networks 1. INTRODUCTION:

Not too many years ago, whenever one wanted to send messages effectively, there were really only two choicessend them bywire or send them by radio. This situation lasted for decades until the mid-1960s,when the fiber optics revolution began, quietly at first, and then with increasing force as people began to appreciate that sending pulses of light through tiny strands of glass wasnt so crazy after all. This revolution is now in full cry, with 4000 strand miles of fiber being installed per day, just in the United States alone. Fiber has been displacing wire in many applications, and gradually it is emerging as one of the two dominant Cinderella transmission technologies of today, wireless being the other. One of these (wireless) goes anywhere but doesnt do much when it gets there, whereas the other (fiber) will never go everywhere but does a great deal indeed wherever it reaches. From the earliest days of fiber communication, people realized that this simple glass medium has incredible amounts of untapped bandwidth capacity waiting to be mined, should the day come when we would actually need it, and should we be able to figure out how to tap it. That day has now come. The demand is here and so are the solutions.

2. Optical media
Optical networks use fiber optic cable to transmit data. This type of cable contains a bundle of glass or plastic threads, called fibers, each of which is capable of transmitting messages modulated into light waves. Fiber optics provide a much greater bandwidth (the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time) than metal cables. They are also thinner and lighter, and less susceptible to interference. In optical networks, light pulses are used to transmit information down fiber lines instead of using electronic pulses to transmit information down copper lines. Data can be transmitted digitally, unlike the electronic pulses on copper lines. To generate these light pulses, there is a transmitter on one end of a fiber line. The transmitter converts an electrical analog into a corresponding optical signal. The source of the optical signal will be a LED when using multimode fiber, or a laser when using single-mode fiber . Both produce infrared light, invisible to the human eye. At the other end of the fiber, there is a receiver. The receiver can be compared to a photoelectric cell in a solar powered calculator: light received is converted into electricity. It converts the light pulse back into the original electrical signal which first entered the transmitter at the other end of the fiber. When the signal is once again transformed into voltage changes, it can be sent over copper wire to a computer, a switch, a router, etc.

A.THE OPTICAL FIBER

A fiber consists of: _ The core: this is the light transmission area of the fiber, either glass or plastic. _ The cladding: a reflective material, to cause reflection within the core so that light waves are transmitted through the fiber. _ The coating: usually multi-layers of plastic applied to preserve fiber strength, absorb shock and provide extra fiber protection.

3. Multimode and single-mode fiber

Multimode fiber is optical fiber that is designed to carry multiple light rays (or modes), each at a slightly different reflection angle within the core. Multimode fiber transmission is used for relatively short distances because the modes tend to disperse over longer lengths. Single-mode fiber is optical fiber that is designed for the transmission of a single ray (mode) of light and is used for long distance signal transmission. It consists of the same parts as multimode fiber, but the light ray travels through a smaller core.

4.Wavelength Division Multiplexing

An optical cable typically consists of a number of individual fibers, where 4, 12, 24 and 48 or more fibers in a cable are common. It would however not be very cost-effective to install a new optical cable with even more fibers, when all the installed fibers have been used. It would be more interesting to put more signals on the same fiber instead. There are different ways to transport more data on a single fiber. One would be Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), where many signals of the same type are multiplexed together electrically before they are converted into light pulses and transmitted. Another technique is Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). WDM bundles several colors (invisible to the human eye) together on a fiber, each of them representing a signal. WDM basically works like this: there are several transmitters, each generating laser light

with a slightly different color (wavelength). These colors are sent into a prism. The prism combines the waves into a single beam. At the other end of the fiber theres another prism, which separates the single beam back into the original colors. It works just like separating the white light from the sun into a spectrum of colors.

5. Evolution of optical networking

A . Intelligent optical networks
The popularity of the Internet also causes another problem: the traffic patterns are very dynamic, they change often. Therefore it is important for an optical network to react quickly to these changes. And that is exactly the problem nowadays: due to the manual intervention of the network operator, it can take up to a few weeks, or even months, to provision a light path. Nowadays, research is being done on the development of Intelligent Optical Networks (IONs), in order to solve this problem. The purpose of Intelligent Optical Networks is to bypass the manual intervention by providing a distributed control plane able to automatically process requests from the clients to establish light paths. The ITU has developed a standard for these IONs: ASON (Automatic Switched Optical Network)

B. Multilayer networks
This takes us to multilayer networks. The use of ION functionality in an IP-over-OTN (Optical Transport Network) allows us to dynamically reconfigure the logical IP network when needed. Logical links can be added where the capacity of existing links seems insufficient, and they can be removed when they are barely used or not used at all. For every logical link, there is a light path in the optical layer. The logical topology is virtual: it contains real routers, but there are no actual cables or any other kind of links between these. Two nodes in this layer can be directly connected, even though there exist no direct links in the physical layer. In this case, they will cross several OXCs.

C. Example:

Topology in the logical layer

6. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
As we stated earlier, the goal of performance management is to enable service providers to provide guaranteed quality of service to the users of their network. This usually requires monitoring of the performance parameters for all the connections supported in the network and taking any actions necessary to ensure that the desired performance goals are met. Performance management is closely tied in to fault management. Fault management involves detecting problems in the network and alerting the management systems appropriately through alarms. If a certain parameter is being monitored and its value falls outside its preset range, the network equipment generates an alarm. For example, we may monitor the power levels of an incoming signal and declare a loss-of-signal (LOS) alarm if we see the power level drop below a certain threshold. In other cases, alarms could be triggered by outright failures, such as the failure of a line card or other components in the system. Fault management also includes restoring service in the event of failures. This function is considered an autonomous network control function because it is typically a distributed applicationwithout network managment intervention (except for configuring various protection parameters up front, reporting events, and performing maintenance operations).

7 .Pa ra meters a ffecting Perfo rma nce

A.The Impact of Transparency
The lightpaths provided by the optical layer need to be managed just like SONET and SDH connections are managed. To a large extent, the amount of management that can be provided depends on the level of transparency provided by the optical layer. As we have seen in Chapter 1, different levels of transparency are possible, based on the range of signals, bit rates, and protocols that can be carried on a lightpath. In a purely transparent network, a lightpath will be capable of carrying analog and digital signals with arbitrary bit rates and protocol formats. This is the utopian vision of optical networking and would allow service providers to offer a range of services without any constraints and provide future-proofing in case the service mix changes over time or when new services are added. However, such

a network is very difficult to engineer and manage. It is difficult to engineer because the various physical layer impairments that must be taken into account in the network design are critically dependent on the type of signal (analog versus digital) and the bit rate. It is difficult to manage because the management system may have no prior knowledge of the protocols or bit rates being used in the network. Therefore, it is not possible to access overhead bits in the transmitted data to obtain performance-related measures. This makes it difficult to monitor the bit error rate. Other parameters such as optical power levels and optical signal-to-noise ratios can be measured. However, the acceptable values for these parameters depend on the type of signal. Unless the management system is told what type of signal is being carried on a lightpath, it will not be able to determine whether the measured power levels and signal-to-noise ratios fall within acceptable limits. At the other exteme, we could design a network that carries data at a fixed bit rate (say, 2.5 Gb/s or 10 Gb/s) and of a particular format (say, SONET only). Such a network would be very cost-effective to build and manage. However, it does not offer service providers the flexibility they need to deliver a wide variety of services using a single network infrastructure and is not future-proof at all. Most optical networks deployed today fall somewhere in between these two extremes. The network is designed to handle digital data at arbitrary bit rates up to a certain specified maximum (say, 10 Gb/s) and a variety of protocol formats such as SONET/SDHand OTN. These networks make use of a number of unique techniques to provide management functions, as we will see next.

B.BER Measurement
The bit error rate (BER) is the key performance attribute associated with a lightpath. The BER can be detected only when the signal is available in the electrical domain, typically at regenerator or transponder locations. As we saw in Chapter 6, framing protocols used in SONET, SDH, and Optical Transport Network include overhead bytes. Part of this overhead consists of parity check bytes by which the BER can be computed. This provides a direct measure of the BER. As long as the client signal data is encapsulated using the SONET/SDH or OTN overhead, we can measure the BER and guarantee the performance within the optical layer. Given the complexity of optical physical layer designs, it is difficult to estimate the BER accurately based on indirect measurements of parameters such as the optical

signal power or the optical signal-to-noise ratio. These parameters may be used to provide some measure of signal quality and may be used as triggers for events such as maintenance or possibly protection switching (which could be based, for example, on loss of power and signal detection) but not to measure BER.

C.Optical Trace
Lightpaths pass through multiple nodes and through multiple cards within the equipment deployed at each node. It is desirable to have a unique identifier associated with each lightpath. For example, this identifier may include the IP address of the originating network element along with the actual identity of the transponder card within that network element where the lightpath terminates. This identifier is called an optical path trace. The trace enables the management system to identify, verify, and manage the connectivity of a lightpath. In addition it provides the ability to perform fault isolation in the event that incorrect connections are made. Recall that trace information is also used in the client layer. SONET/SDH has trace information in its section and path overheads, and OTN has trace information in its OTU and ODU overheads.

D.Alarm Management
In a network, a single failure eventmay causemultiple alarms to be generated all over the network and incorrect actions to be taken in response to the failed condition. Consider, in particular, a simple example. When a link fails, all lightpaths on that link fail. This could be detected at the nodes at the end of the failed link, which would then issue alarms for each individual lightpath as well as report an entire link failure. In addition, all the nodes through which these lightpaths traverse could detect the failure of these lightpaths and issue alarms. For example, in a network with 32 lightpaths on a given link, each traversing through two intermediate nodes, the failure of a single link could trigger a total of 129 alarms (1 for the link failure and 4 for each lightpath at each of the nodes associated with the lightpath). It is clearly the management systems job to report the single root-cause alarm in this case, namely, the failure of the link, and suppress the remaining 128 alarms. Alarm suppression is accomplished by using a set of special signals, called the forward defect indicator (FDI) and the backward defect indicator (BDI). Figure shows the operation of the FDI and BDI signals. When a link fails, the node downstream

of the failed link detects it and generates a defect condition. For instance, a defect condition could be generated because of a high bit error rate on the incoming signal or an outright loss of light on the incoming signal. If the defect persists for a certain time period (typically a few seconds), the node generates an alarm.

Immediately upon detecting a defect, the node inserts an FDI signal downstream to the next node. The FDI signal propagates rapidly, and nodes further downstream receive the FDI and suppress their alarms. The FDI signal is also referred to as the alarm indication signal (AIS). A node detecting a defect also sends a BDI signal upstreamto the previous node, to notify that node of the failure. If this previous node did not send out an FDI, it then knows that the link to the next node downstream has failed. Note further that separate FDI and BDI signals are needed for different sublayers within the optical layer, for example, to distinguish between link failures and failures of individual lightpaths, or to distinguish between the failure of a section of the link between amplifier locations and that of the entire link. Figure 8.5 illustrates one possible use of these different indicator signals in an OTN network. Suppose there is a link cut between OLT A and amplifier B as shown. Amplifier B detects the cut. It immediately inserts an OMS-FDI signal downstream indicating that all channels in the multiplexed group have failed and also an OTS-BDI signal upstream to OLT A. The OMS-FDI is transmitted as part of the overhead associated with the OMS layer, and the OTS-BDI is transmitted as part of the overhead associated with the OTS layer. Note that an OMS-FDI is transmitted downstream and not an OTS-FDI. This is because the defect information needs to be propagated all the way downstream to the network element where the OMS layer is terminated, which, in this case, is OADM D. Amplifier C downstream receives the OMS-FDI and passes it on. OADM D, which is the next node downstream, receives the OMS-FDI and determines that all the lightpaths on the incoming link have failed. Some of these lightpaths are dropped locally, and others are passed through. For each lightpath passed through,

the OADM generates OCh-FDIs and sends them downstream. The OCh-FDIs are transmitted as part of the OCh overhead. At the end of the all-optical subnet, at OLT E, the wavelengths are demultiplexed and terminated in transponders/regenerators. Therefore the OCh layer is terminated here. OLT E receives the OCh-FDIs. OLT E then generates ODU-FDI indicators for each failed OTN connection and sends that downstream to the ultimate destination of each connection as part of the ODU overhead. Finally, the only node that issues an alarm is node B. Another major reason for using the defect indicator signals is that defects are used to trigger protection switching. For example, nodes adjacent to a failure detect the failure and may trigger a protection-switching event to reroute traffic around the failure. At the same time, nodes further downstream and upstream of the failure may think that other links have failed and decide to reroute traffic as well. A node receiving an FDI knows whether or not it should initiate protection switching. For example, if the protection-switching method requires the nodes immediately adjacent to the failure to reroute traffic, other nodes receiving the FDI signal will not invoke protection switching. On the other hand, if protection switching is done by the nodes at the end of a lightpath, then a node receiving an FDI initiates protection switching if it is the end point of the associated lightpath.

E. Data Communication Network (DCN) and Signaling

The element management system (EMS) communicates with the different network elements through the DCN. This DCN is usually a standard TCP/IP or OSI network (see Chapter 6). The DCN should be reliable so that it will continue to transport control information if there is a failure in the network. This means that the CDN should have enough topological connectivity to remain connected after failures. The DCN can be transported in several ways: 1. Through a separate out-of-band network outside the optical layer. Carriers can make use of their existing TCP/IP or OSI networks for this purpose. If such a network is not available, dedicated leased lines could be used for this purpose. This option is viable for network elements that are located in big central offices where such connectivity is easily available, but not viable for network elements such as optical amplifiers that are located in remote huts in the field. 2. Through the OSC on a separate wavelength (see Section 8.5.7). This option is available for WDM line equipment that processes the optical transmission section and multiplex section layers, where the optical supervisory channel is

made available. For example, optical amplifiers are managed using this approach. However, this option is not available to equipment that only looks at the optical channel layer, such as optical crossconnects. 3. Through the rate-preserving inband optical channel layer overhead techniques to be described in Section 8.5.7. This option is useful for equipment that only looks at the optical channel layer and does not process the multiplex and transmission section layers, such as optical crossconnects. Also, it is available only at locations where the lightpath is processed in the electrical domain, that is, at regenerator or transponder locations.

F. Policing
One function of the management system is to monitor the wavelength and power levels of signals being input to the network to ensure that they meet the requirements imposed by the network. As we discussed above, the acceptable power levels will depend on the signal types and bit rates. The types and bit rates are specified by the user, and the network can then set thresholds for the parameters as appropriate for each signal type and monitor them accordingly. This includes threshold values for the parameters at which alarms must be set off. The thresholds depend on the data rate, wavelength, and specific location along the path of the lightpath, and degradations may be measured relative to their original values. Another more important function is to monitor the actual service being utilized by the user. For example, the service provider may choose to provide two services, say, a Gigabit Ethernet service and an OC-192 service, by leasing a transparent lightpath to the user. The two services may be tariffed differently. With a purely transparent network, it is difficult to prevent a user who opts for the Gigabit Ethernet service from sending OC-192 traffic. What this implies is that services based on leasing wavelengths will likely be tariffed based on a specified maximum bit rate, with the user being allowed to send any signal up to the specified maximum bit rate.

G. Optical Layer Overhead

Supporting the optical path trace, defect indicators, and BER measurement requires the use of some sort of overhead in the optical layer. We have alluded indirectly to some of these overheads earlier, for example, use of the SONET/SDH overhead

to measure the BER and use of the optical supervisory channel to carry some of the defect indicator signals. In this section, we describe four different methods for carrying the optical layer overhead. The pilot tone approach and the optical supervisory channel are useful to carry overhead information within an all-optical subnetwork. At the boundaries of each subnetwork, the signal is regenerated (3R) by converting into the electrical domain and back. The rate-preserving overhead can be used to carry overhead information across an entire optical network through multiple all-optical subnetworks.

H.Client Layers
The performance and fault management mechanisms of the SONET/SDH and the electronic layer of OTN have already been discussed. Since SONET/SDH and OTN provide constant bit rate service, they use bit error rate (BER) as a performance measure as well as loss of signal. Network elements are informed of error and fault events through defect indicators . They also have trace information in their overhead. Protocols that provide packet transport services such as Ethernet or MPLS have performance measures that are packet oriented, such as packet loss rate, packet delay, and packet delay variation (jitter). To detect if a connection (link or path) is up, hello or continuity check messages are sent periodically through the connection between the end nodes. If these messages are not received, then it is assumed that the connection is down. Remote defect indicators and AIS signals are used by one end of a link to inform the other end that it has detected a failure or error. Management occurs at different levels. At the lowest level, individual links are managed, while at the highest level end-to-end connections are managed. In the middle level, segments of an end-to-end connection can be managed such as when a segment goes through another network operator. In addition, end-to-end management can be customer oriented or service provider oriented.

8.Advantages of Optical Fiber Cable / Communications:

Optical Fiber Cables can run massive distances like 40 KM or much more (Single Mode Fiber Cables) without having to repeat the signal anywhere in-between.

Normally, the Optical Fiber Cables do not have speed limits or bandwidth limitations. They can support any speed/ bandwidth depending only on the type of optics (active components) used at either end. But the distance over which they can support such speeds varies for each fiber material.

Its normally enough to replace the optics (active components) at either end in order to upgrade the fiber communication to support higher bandwidths. There is no need to change all the underlying cabling.

Optical Fiber Cables support duplex communications (simultaneous upstream and downstream), but they use two cores for doing so. One core is used for Transmission (Tx) and the other core is used for Reception (Rx).

Optical Fiber Cables are flexible and can be laid both within the buildings (Indoor Fiber Cables) and outside the buildings (Shielded Fiber Cables). In most of the cases, they are buried under the ground (with a depth of minimum 3 feet) using a Trench and protective materials.

Multiple cores are built into each optical fiber cable(like 6/12/24 cores) and hence each optical cable can support multiple individual connections (3/6/12). Optical Fiber Cables are not affected by EMI Electromagnetic Interference as they carry light, and hence can be used even for the most demanding industrial applications.

They can also be used in lightning prone areas as they do not carry the electrical signals as such to affect switch ports, etc during a lightning.

The danger of ignition during a fire is much less with optical fiber cables. There are optical taps that can be inserted in-between long running optical cables. There are two types of taps Passive optical taps that do not require electrical power and are used for simple monitoring of OFC networks & Active optical taps that require electrical power and are used for manipulation or boosting of signals sent to the monitoring port.

The low cost 850 nm Laser optimized 50/125 micro meter Multi-Mode Fiber (OM3 type) gives 10 GE performance for up to 300 meters. The optics associated with it are also moderately priced. So, these fibers can be used in the enterprise LAN segment for short distances, where the single mode optics might turn out more expensive. OM4 Laser Optimized Multi-Mode Fiber supports even higher bandwidths like 40/100 Gbps.

Even if many fibers run along side each other, the chances of cross talk (and hence signal loss) is very less, unlike Copper UTP Cables.

Wire tapping with Optical Fiber Cables is more difficult. Optical Fiber Cables (Especially Passive Optical Networks) are used for providing high speed broadband to homes, these days (FTTH).

Trouble shooting an Optical Fiber Network is possible with equipments like the OTDR Tester (Optical Time Domain Reflectometer). Using this, one could measure the optical power loss and locate the faults caused due to fiber breaks, connectors or splicing.

9.Limitations of Optical Fiber Cable Networks:

Optical Fiber cables have limited bend radius (about 30 mm). So, if they are bent more, it might lead to some signal loss. But recently, bend resistant fibers have been introduced which have higher tolerance to bending.

Copper UTP cables can carry data as well as power. Some POE enabled IP devices like IP Phones, Wireless Access Points etc are powered directly using the UTP Cables/ POE switches. This, is not supported by the optical fiber cables as they carry only data.

Unlike Copper UTP cables which have standard Rj-45 Jacks and connectors (mostly), optical fiber cables have many types of connectors and this lack of standardization adds confusion.

By bending the normal optical fiber cables, some leakage of signal could be induced and that can be used for hacking the information in them. So, even though doing that might be difficult, they are not totally tamper proof.

Single mode cables and their associated optics (active components) are very expensive. Even though multi-mode cables/ optics are less expensive, they are not even close to the costs of copper UTP cables/ ports. Moreover, multi-mode cables have restrictions in distance for supporting higher bandwidth (like 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps).

There are outdoor fiber cables but they need to be shielded well. This shielding makes them less agile/ flexible to run in all the places and it increases the cost of cables as well.

Fiber cables can not be directly terminated on to the network/ optical switches. They need a whole array of active/ passive components like SFP Modules, Fiber Patch Cords, appropriate connectors, Fiber Patch Panel (LIU), Pigtails and Couplers. All these components add the cost of fiber network implementation at each location.

Each Core of the Optical Fiber cable needs to be spliced in order to complete the connection to the network/optical switch. Both the splicing equipment and the cost of installation (for splicing) per core is quite high.

Fiber splicing is a complicated procedure and requires skilled manpower to achieve. If it is not done properly, there will be performance degradation.

An outdoor shielded fiber cable cannot just be laid in a trench. It requires, at minimum, external HDPE pipe surrounding it over the entire length, bricks/ concrete slabs over the fiber cable/ HDPE pipe also extending the entire length through which they are laid, outdoors. This, no need to mention, further increases the cost.

After installation and also during trouble shooting, the fiber cores need to be tested using testing equipments like OTDR. But these equipments are quite expensive to procure, and if rented, the charges for testing each core could be considerable.

CONCLUSION

Clearly, networking has undergone tremendous changes over the past 25 years.more wide spread adoption of OTN technology to simplify network operations, a greater role for Ethernet, increased use of optics to achieve cost efficiencies, and a mix of wavelength line-rates (possibly in conjunction with wavebands) to better match the service granularities. Whatever direction networks follow, it is clear that steady traffic growth, with a greater diversity of services, will continue. To meet this growth, carriers will continue to seek technologies that provide cost, scalability, and operational advantages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Optical Networks,A Practical Perspective,Third Edition Data Connection Computer Technology, Introduction to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), http://www.dataconnection.com/mpls/whatis.htm Ghent University - IMEC, Department of Information Technology, Multi-layer Traffic Engineering in Data-centric Optical Networks, Illustration of concepts and benefits Paola Iovanna, Roberto Sabella, and Marina Settembre, Ericsson Lab Italy, A Traffic Engineering System for Multilayer Networks Based on the GMPLS Paradigm Ghent University - IMEC, Department of Information Technology, Influence of the observation window size on the performance of multi-layer traffic engineering