SONET Architecture

Dr. Huda Naji

Information Technology \Information Networks Dept.
 SONET and SDH define a set of physical
layer standards for communications over
optical fiber.
 SONET topology can be a mesh, but most
often it is a dual ring.
 Standard component of SONET ring is an
ADM (Add/Drop Multiplexer)
◦ Drop one incoming multiplexed stream and replace
it with another stream.
◦ See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGfmCNCC6PA
 Much of the carrier infrastructure today uses
SONET/SDH rings.
 These rings are called self-healing because they
incorporate protection mechanisms that
automatically detect failures and reroute traffic
away from failed links and nodes onto other routes
rapidly.
 The rings are implemented using SONET/SDH
add/drop multiplexers (ADMs).
 These ADMs selectively drop and add traffic
from/to the ring as well as protect the traffic
against failures.
  The different types of ring architectures differ in
two aspects: in the directionality of traffic and in
the protection mechanisms used.
 A unidirectional ring carries working traffic in
only one direction of the ring (say, clockwise).

 Working traffic from node A to node

B is carried clockwise along the
ring, and working traffic from B to A
is also carried clockwise, on a
different set of links in the ring.
 A great variety of protection schemes are
used in today’s networks, and the notions of
working paths and protect paths are
fundamental to understanding them.
 Working paths carry traffic under normal
operation; protect paths provide an alternate
path to carry the traffic in case of failures.
 Working and protection paths are usually
diversely routed so that both paths are not
lost in case of a single failure.

 A bidirectional ring carries working traffic in both
directions.
 Working traffic from A to B is carried clockwise, and working
traffic from B to A is carried counterclockwise along the ring.

Note that in both unidirectional and

bidirectional SONET/SDH rings, all
connections are bidirectional and
use up the same amount of
bandwidth in both directions.
 The two directions of a connection
are routed differently based on the
type of ring.
The SONET layer consists of four
sublayers—the path, line, section, and
physical layers.
 Each layer, except for the physical
layer, has a set of associated overhead
bytes that are used for several
purposes.
 The path layer in SONET (and SDH) is
responsible for end-to-end connections
between nodes and is terminated only at
the ends of a SONET connection.
• The path layer is responsible for the movement of
a signal from its optical source to its optical
destination.
• At the optical source, the signal is changed from
an electronic form into an optical form,
multiplexed with other signals, and encapsulated
in a frame. At the optical destination, the received
frame is demultiplexed, and the individual optical
signals are changed back into their electronic
forms.
 The line layer is terminated at each
intermediate line terminal multiplexer (TM)
or add/drop multiplexer (ADM) along the
route of a SONET connection.
 The line layer is also responsible for
performing certain types of protection
switching to restore service in the event of a
line failure.
 The line layer is responsible for the
movement of a signal across a physical line.
 Each link consists of a number of sections,
corresponding to link segments between
regenerators.
• The section layer is terminated at each
regenerator in the network.
• The section layer is responsible for the movement of
a signal across a physical section.
Finally, the physical layer is
responsible for actual
transmission of bits across
the fiber.
SONET uses a basic transmission rate of STS–1 (synchronous transport
signal level 1) that is equivalent to 51.84 Mbps.
Higher-level signals are integer multiples of the base rate. For example,
STS–3 is three times the rate of STS–1 (3 x 51.84 = 155.52 Mbps). An
STS–12 rate would be 12 x 51.84 = 622.08 Mbps.

The frame format of the STS–1 signal.

In general, the frame can be divided into
two main areas: transport overhead and
the synchronous payload envelope
(SPE).
The synchronous payload envelope can
also be divided into two parts: the STS
path overhead (POH) and the payload.
The first three columns of the STS–1
frame are for the transport overhead.

 The three columns contain 27 bytes. Of

these, 9 bytes are overhead for the section
layer (for example, each section overhead),
and 18 bytes are overhead for the line layer
(for example, line overhead)

 The remaining 87 columns constitute the

STS–1 envelope capacity (payload and
POH).
❖The basic signal of SONET is the STS–1. The STS
frame format is composed of 9 rows of 90 columns
of 8-bit bytes, or 810 bytes.
❖The byte transmission order is row-by-row,
left to right. At a rate of 8,000 frames per
second, that works out to a rate of 51.840
Mbps, as the following equation
demonstrates:
❖ (9) x (90 bytes/frame) x (8 bits/byte) x (8,000 frames/s) = 51,840,000 bps =
51.840 Mbps
❖ 6480 bit/ 125 msec (frame)