Huawei Technologies

GE ADM-based Ethernet
service transmission solution
by Michael Xiong

Today, both services and networks are more and more IP-based. Considering such issues as the
development trend of MAN, service capacity, transport distance, performance/price ratio, GE has
become the mainstream interface for metropolitan broadband data network interworking. In the
face of mass GE interworking, it becomes more and more important to create a solution for
transportation and build a manageable, operational, low-cost, and QoS guaranteed carrier-class
metropolitan network.

W
ith the construction of ADSL, FTTH,
IPTV networks, operators are able to
provide abundant service experiences,
including internet browse, movie
download, IP voice, network games
for public users, as well as the video conference, remote
education and VPN for business users.`
With the large expansion of backbone and access
network capacities, operators are shifting their
competition focus from backbone networks to metro
networks. In consideration of the development trend,
service capacity, transmission capacity, and performance/
price ratio of metro networks, GE becomes the
mainstream interface for metro broadband data service
interworking. How to effectively solve the service
transmission problems and create a manageable, operable,
and low-cost carrier-class metro network with QoS
guarantee is a growing concern for operators.
The transport problems of Metro
Ethernet services
There are many solutions for Metro Ethernet service
transmissions, which however, fail to reach high
performance/price ratio. Metro Ethernet service
transmission faces the following challenges:
• Low utilization of fiber source, small network capacity,
limited transmission distance, and expensive long-haul

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GE ADM, Ethernet Service

transmission. optical-layer services and make these services dropping GE services directly. GE ADM
• Complex network structure, limited pass through. GE ADM matrix can add/ technology multiplexes multi-GE services
VLAN resources and MAC address drop and groom GE sub-wavelengths. The into a wavelength. Through the embedded
resources, and a limitation of Network combination of optical layer channel-level cross-connect grooming unit, it can add/
upgrade and expansion. service grooming function and electrical drop GE services flexibly or let GE services
• Prefect end to end QoS guarantee problem. layer GE-channel-level service grooming pass smoothly through. In this case, it
• Carrier-class protection switching problem. function can implement the fiber sharing achieves transparent grooming of GE
• Protocol independence and transparent function and the wavelength sharing
granularity, and provides a flexible and
transmission. function.The figure1 illustrates the system
reliable configuration plan and strong service
• Fast supporting for unsure services. hierarchy of the Metro WDM system.
convergence as well as grooming capabilities
• Secure isolation between users. in the metro network.
OADM/ROADM
• Network performance monitoring and GE granularity in GE ADM is quite
internal OA&M capabilities. Huawei Metro WDM system provides
OADMs with fixed wavelengths, including similar to VC12 in the SDH, and its
parallel mode, serial mode, and their wavelength is similar to VC4 in the SDH.
GE ADM solutions combinations. These OADM modules can The total capacity of the WDM system is
be smoothly upgraded and expanded by similar to the line rate of the SDH.
GE ADM vs. Metro WDM
overlapping or cascading. In order to
Now, the simple way of improving line i m p rov e f l e x i b i l i t y o f w a ve l e n g t h Advantages of GE ADM
rate of transmission alone is no longer to configuration and service adding/dropping, • Through the grooming unit of GE ADM,
meet the bandwidth requests of services. By Huawei’s WDM system adopts the GE of different nodes might share one
using WDM technology in Metropolitans,
operators can improve their fiber capacity,
and solve the problem of transmitting signals
of multiple wavelengths over one fiber, and
add/drop services directly in the optical layer.
However, this fails to handle the problem
of single-wavelength efficiency, which can
be solved by Huawei GE ADM technology.
With GE ADM, operators can add/drop GE
services can freely, and the GE of multiple
nodes can share a single wavelength. The
perfect combination of GE ADM and Metro
WDM offers a new solution for IP DSLAM,
IPTV, and GE VPN.
According to the different kinds of
networks, Huawei Metro WDM system can
provide the proper transmission solution
from the access or convergence layer (OptiX
Metro6040 C/DWDM) to the core layer
(OptiX Metro6100 DWDM). All these
instruments share the major functional
modules, software or hardware platforms,
and reduce CAPEX and OPEX. Figure 1: Architecture of GE ADM-based Metro WDM

GE ADM-based Metro WDM
networking
The difference between Huawei Metro
WDM system and traditional WDM system
lies in the former using the architecture of
OADM/ROADM + GE ADM. The use of
wavelength conversion units and multi-
channel conversion units can access services.
OADM/ROAM technology can add/drop
ROADM and tunable lasers to enhance the
Metro WDM network flexibility and reduce
the cost of standby devices.
GE ADM
The improvement of wavelength
utilization can effectively reduce network
c o s t s . Hu a w e i’s u n i q u e G E A D M
technology defines GE services as the basic
granularity in the wavelength for adding/
wavelength, in which, 75% wavelengths
are reduces. This can reduce the cost of
OADM.
• It provides excellent GE channel protection
and GE channel shared protection
function.
• It reduces the optical amplifiers.
• It reduces electrical regenerators and
dispersion compensation modules.
• It provides end-to-end GE service con-

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figuration and fast service provisioning. wavelength-level services, and provide DSLAM transmission solution based on
• It provides flexible upgrade and expansion expressways for operators of data services. GE ADM reduces the number of hops for
mode and GE service grooming. electrical regeneration or store and forward,

Flexible service grooming

Huawei Metro WDM system uses
OADM + GE ADM technology to achieve
flexible upgrade, expansion, and service
grooming for GE channels. When using fixed
OADMs to create wavelength channels, you
might configure various numbers of GE
service channels at different nodes according
to network service requirements, activate/
deactivate or add/delete GE services. With
the complete remote software drive, no other
service channels are affected.
By using ROADM + tunable lasers, the
Metro WDM system can improve the
flexibility of wavelength assignment.
However, it fails to dynamically groom or
assign GE services. By using ROADM +
tunable lasers + GE ADM technology, the
Metro WDM system might flexibly provide
or groom GE sub-wavelengths and
Applications of GE ADM
GE transmission in ADSL/FTTH
Huawei GE ADM technology offers the
complete DSLAM transmission solution from
the access layer to the core layer. With the ability
to effectively transport Ethernet services
from the edge nodes to the center nodes, it
can be applied ether to single-homing or to
dual-homing data service networks.
GE ADM technology can provide
transparent transmission and cross-connect
grooming of GE services. It is able to fulfill
the purpose of adding/dropping GE services
directly to/from the fiber or wavelength. With
the customized multi-channel GE service
convergence unit, it can multiplex low-speed
Ethernet services into the high-speed
wavelength, to improve wavelength utilization.
GE services at different nodes can share one
wavelength, reducing the network cost.
using minimum wavelengths and optical
amplifiers to bear Ethernet services. In
addition, it directly adds/drops wavelengths
at the optical layer and adds/drops GE
services at the electrical layer. It not only
expands the network capacity, but also
enhances network reliability and OAM
capability.
GE VPN
GE ADM technology can realize
multiplexing of multi-GE services of
different nodes into one wavelength. It
features flexible GE channel configuration,
grooming, and routing in the wavelength.
It can be used to achieve GE VPN. Users
can create multiple VPNs based on GE sub-
wavelength. In this case, users can add to or
remove from the VPN group, fulfill physical
isolation in the WMD system, and realize
the large-capacity and high-security.

Huawei GE ADM technology offers the com-

plete DSLAM transmission solution from the
access layer to the core layer. With the abil-
ity to effectively transport Ethernet services
from the edge nodes to the center nodes, it
can be applied ether to single-homing or to
dual-homing data service networks.

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GE ADM, Ethernet Service

GE multicast applications for IPTV

IPTV includes rich services, which might
be grouped into uni-cast (VOD) and
multicast (BTV as the representative) by the
type of traffic flow. IPTV services need high
real-time and interactive features. Therefore,
the network quality by using multi-layer
storage forwarding mode is uncontrollable.
Huawei’s GE ADM technology can
conveniently achieve GE multicast and
broadcast functions.
The Metro WDM sends all GE channels
to the downstream node, which uses GE
ADM to perform transparent cross-connect
duplication for GE channels and then
transmits the duplicated GE to the next
node. In multicast or uni-cast mode, the
Metro WDM system provides wavelength-
level protection and GE-channel-level
protection.

Application cases Figure 2: Parts of DSLAM transport network in Lisbon, Portugal

By now, Metro WDM equipment

provided by Huawei has been widely used
all over the world, including the case of the
core metropolitan data network of GTS in
Budapest, Hungary, and the DSLAM
transport network of Novis, Portugal.
Novis is a very important fixed network
operator in Portugal. With the booming
increase of broadband data services on the
Internet, Novis had difficulties in
constructing a nationwide broadband data
transport network, especially in some large
cities, such as the capital, Lisbon and the
famous harbor city, Porto, and others where
there are a large number of ADSL
subscribers, whom Novis offered abundant
services such as IPTV, network video,
broadband browser. Now, a large number
of GE channels of broadband access
equipment should be able to realize efficient
and reliable interworking. Considering the
service development and the requirements
of network expansion and upgrade, there
were 4 GEs in each DSLAM needed to be
uploaded. Traditional transport networks
could not implement this service provision
for Novis.
After multilateral discussions, Novis
chose Metro 6100 + 6400 hybrid solution
provided by Huawei to construct its GE/
ADM-based Ethernet transport platform
from the access to the core layer. With this
platform, Novis can realize fast GE service
provision and provide ideal protection in the
optical layer to save optical fibers and reduce
the cost of construction, maintenance and
upgrade.
Figure2 illustrates parts of the network.
In Lisbon, Metro 6100s are used in large
capacity offices in metropolitan area
transport networks while Metro 6040s are
used in small ones. Furthermore, unified
hardware/software platform and network
management systems have also been
adopted, which greatly reduce the
construction cost of the whole network.
Conclusion: QoS and
efficiency is ensured
Based on the understanding of network
development and market partitioning,
Huawei releases a new Metro Ethernet
service transmission solution by combining
GE ADM and Metro WDM technologies.
By using GE grooming and wavelength
grooming function, GE services and
wavelengths can be flexibly added/dropped
to/from the fiber directly, and GE services
or wavelength channels can be provided
end-to-end quickly in the metro network.
The combination of optical layer protec-
tion and GE channel layer protection
provides excellent multilayer protection
mechanisms, thus ensuring QoS and
network survivability capabilities and
constructing efficient Ethernet service
transmission solutions such as IP DSLAM,
IPTV, and GE VPN.

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