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CHAPTER 5
FROM THE PMA32
TO THE NEW OMS FAMILIES
5.1 PMA-32 UTILIZATION
In this paragraph we’re considering a short history of the PMA32 and the way it has been used in Photonics.
5.1.1 THE LAUNCH (1999)
In 1999 Marconi Communications announced the launch of its 32 channel DWDM-based SmartPhotonix family, which the Marconi announcement claimed to be the world's first complete "carrier-grade" optical networking platform consisting of:
a. PLT-40: an optical line system, designed for long-haul, point-to-point connectivity. b. PMA-32 OADM: This Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer, that is available either as an intermediate node on a point-to-point system or as a node on a fibre ring, such as a MAN, where the PMA-32 is said to be able to support high-resilience path protection mechanisms at the optical layer.
c. PXC-32 OXC: This Optical Cross-Connect, according to Marconi, enables operators to perform end-to-end wavelength routing in and across fibre rings, where rings meet long-haul point-to-point systems, and through meshed fibre networks.
The announcement noted that both b. and c. included what Marconi claim is an unique electronically managed tunable laser and also claimed both products incorporated "possibly the best optical amplifiers in the world".
Dave Lewis, optical networks director, Marconi Communications, said Marconi's new 32-channel full optical high-capacity network product range offered service providers unprecedented levels of flexibility, scalability and manageability - a sophistication and usefulness in network design that Lewis claimed was not available in point-to-point systems, irrespective of sheer channel numbers.
5.1.2 THE PMA-32 IN GENOA’s G8 SUMMIT (2001)
World Leaders get World-leading Network in Genoa.
In July 2001, the historic Italian city of Genoa hosted the G8 summit. This internationally important meeting, held at least once a year, sees the Heads of State and Government from the world’s most-developed countries discuss world affairs.
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Around 1500 people from international delegations and more than 4000 from the worldwide press converged on Genoa for the G8 Summit. The Palazzo Ducale, a spectacular palace at the heart of Genoa’s cultural and social life, was chosen as the venue. But, with so many important people present, and so much at stake, it’s not only the venue that has to be perfect for an occasion like this. Everything from the travel arrangements, to the accommodations, to the catering, to the communications network,
has to come from carefully chosen suppliers.
Safeguarding Information
With this in mind, the Italian operator Wind, selected Marconi, a world leader in telecoms and IT, as its technological partner. Marconi was put in charge of the network design, planning, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance. It was a key position to safeguard the delivery of information to press and government delegations.
After designing the network, Marconi tested its robustness, performance and interoperability. The result was a network that provided G8 delegates with traditional data services, such as e-mail and printing, multimedia services (video-streaming, video-on-demand, videoconferences, high-speed data download), Internet connections and traditional telephony.
Linking 40 Countries
The network connected G8 operations centers all over the world and linked more than 40 countries via videoconferencing. Great importance was attached to video services: Marconi provided both video-on-demand and live broadcast, with connection to more than 30 channels worldwide – a total bandwidth of 4 Gbps for video services and 1.5 Gbps for voice services. The company placed around 160 multimedia PCs in the Palazzo Ducale and equipped Magazzini del Cotone, the press venue, with about 600 PCs and more than 2000 Local Area Network (LAN) connections.
With such a globally important summit, Marconi took particular care to guarantee reliability and security. Reliability was assured with the fault-tolerance and redundancy features built in to the equipment. And, to ensure the network could operate in critical situations (e.g. site damage), some equipment was duplicated and located on different sites. Marconi guaranteed network protection and security with highly reliable firewall systems and intrusion-detection systems, and by splitting the network into smaller sub-nets, each catering for different needs (e.g. press delegations from the same country). Wind itself was responsible for network security.
Half-a-million Minutes
Marconi’s network clocked-up half-a-million minutes of voice traffic and 6,000 hours of TV-channel usage. On top of this, Marconi recorded 15,000 network accesses and 160,000 page views, whilst journalists sent more than 10,000 articles each day. The resilient network also repelled many hackers’ attacks: only two passed the first level of security before identification. The G8 network required a huge effort from everyone involved, but it was also a huge success. Many important people expressed their admiration. These
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included President George W. Bush, who shook hands and congratulated one of Marconi's staff on the exceptional network performance.
Technical Detail
The G8 network is based on Gigabit Ethernet and SDH/DWDM technology. Its different elements were located in three points of presence (POPs):
• Genoa server farm (management site out of G8 Red Zone, Internet connection,
backbone interconnection)
• Magazzini del Cotone (press) • Palazzo Ducale (summit)
In addition, equipment was also installed in the Stazione Marittima (Maritime Station), which housed the Government’s delegation offices, and the Palazzo della Borsa (the Stock Exchange) for the Organisational Committee office. Marconi also installed SDH equipment in the European Vision and Mistral ships, housing the Heads of State and Government.
The POPs are connected via optical-TDM rings composed of DWDM and SDH equipment (PMA32, MSH51c and MSH41c) and Gigabit Ethernet rings comprising layer3 switches (ESR-5000 and ESR-6000).
Each POP (structured in three layers – backbone, riser and edge) comprises:
• Two ESR-6000 backbone nodes connected to the optical ring
• Riser nodes (ESR-6000 again) collecting and concentrating traffic from the edge
nodes and transferring traffic towards the backbone nodes
• Edge nodes (ESR-5000/6000) and stackable Ethernet switches, depending on
traffic requirements
The Palazzo Ducale provided connections for about 160 clients, while the Magazzini del Cotone offered more than 2100 connections.
5.2 FROM THE PMA32
TO THE NEW OMS FAMILIES
5.2.1 MARCONI-ERICSSON PRESENT THE HEIR OF THE PMA-32:
THE MHL3000 (2006)
Ericsson Marconi MHL 3000 xWDM platform has been designed to satisfy requirements of full service broadband networks (voice, IPTV, wireless…). It enables to manage bandwidth flexibility for optical channel switching and restoration. The product offers network operators a unique flexibility, scalability across the entire access, metro and core application space, in a single, highly optimized solution in terms of performance and network costs. MHL 3000 has been designed to offer a single and modular platform to
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reduce network complexity and cost per bit per service with low first in costs and minimal incremental investment to accommodate traffic growth and new services.
The system flexibility also provides outstanding bandwidth utilization and quality of service for high-speed data, storage, video and voice, operating at bit rate of 2.5G/10G/40G. MHL 3000 enables plug-and-play architecture reducing planning, commissioning, maintenance and control, with a reduced network complexity.
GMPLS/ASTN control plane enables restoration mechanism to optimize resource utilization and increasing service availability in multi-faults scenarios.
Key Features
• Adaptable to any range of network applications (metro or core up to 4000km) through its highly modular and easily configurable design approach.
• Transparent and dynamic optical switching for enhanced network connectivity and service provisioning. Reconfigurable OADM is offered with passive OADM nodes, and with wavelength switch technology for up to 80channels applications.
• Transponder cards up to 40G provide outstanding bandwidth utilization. MHL 3000 offers a wide range of traffic cards to serve any network requirement.
• Plug-and-play solution removes the manual set-up, for smooth and efficient network response.
Versatility in Core applications
Modular adaptation to core networks
MHL 3000 Core provides a modular approach solution to the increased demand of bandwidth. It provides flexibility in wavelength service in metro area, and the managed bandwidth with restoration and ASTN planner in the backhaul. This modular approach enables MHL 3000 to be configured in any number of physical and logical network configurations - linear, ring and highly mesh - and enables to evolve network in delivering new services.
Seamless 40G operation
MHL 3000 enables integrated 40G transponders on existing 10G networks without changing the existing link infrastructure (e.g. fiber, amplifier setting,
dispersion map tuning).
Optical Control Plane
Distributed Control Plane based on ASTN architecture, using GMPLS protocols enables dynamic reconfigurable network. The support of GMPLS/ASTN control plane offers a wide range of restoration options, pre-planned or on the fly for improved network resources and increased resiliency against double failures. Typically network saving are in the range of 30% for an equivalent quality of service.
Removed electrical regeneration
The MHL 3000’s strength and resilience for very long distances up to 4000km completely eliminate the need for costly electrical regeneration.
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Key advantages
Compact and modular
MHL 3000 system is based on three universal enclosures - compact, single and dual row subrack (Figure 5.1). This enclosure can house any mix of transmission units, permitting maximum flexibility in slot allocation and growth options. Contained entry-cost scenarios, it can rapidly and flexibly scale to 6.4Tbits capacity to satisfy variable future traffic flows. This approach, in conjunction with various transponder/muxponder units, brings an outstanding level of card and port density/variation for any combination of low and high speed WAN and LAN services.
Figure 5.1 - Different types of MHL3000 enclosures
Effective multi-service delivery
MHL 3000 provides protocol independent transport of SDH/SONET, Ethernet services, Integrated transponders and muxponders for TDM or Data services, ranging from 2.5Gbit/s, to 10Gbit/s and 40Gbit/s rate, and the wide choice of transmission formats available (e.g. NRZ, RZ, ODB, RZ-DQPSK) allows the MHL 3000 family to be deployed to meet the widest range of network and performance requirements.
High network resiliency and protection features
MHL 3000 Core has a wide optical protection suite, to deliver maximum service availability at the lowest market cost. Standard 1+1 OSNCP can be combined with full card redundancy for single wavelength protection.
Optimum Network Control
Traffic upgrades and provisioning is performed without manual intervention. All plug-in cards/modules are immediately recognized and configured by the management system. Optional analogue performance monitoring and processing enables fast fault identification and correction.
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Network and ASTN planning tool
GMPLS/ASTN planner configures networks with control plane for a centralized or a distributed solution. It optimizes resource utilization without impact network reliability delivering network configurations and commissioning.
Technical data
Applications
Edge, Metro and Core
Topology
Point-to-point, linear, ring, hubbed, meshed
Capacity 80chs @ 40G; In service upgradeable to 160chs Fiber types G.652, G.653, G.654 and G.655
Channel Spacing 100/50GHZ
Transmission Format NRZ, RZ, ODB, RZ-DQPSK Network applications
Network size: up to 4000km
Optical amplifier modules
Output power from +16 to 20.5dBm Gain: up to 29 with 10dB gain range Dynamics: 1-80channels
Constant power or gain operation Embedded optical leveling and control
Raman amplifier: Counter- and co-propagating
Tributary cards
2.5G Modular Transponder-Muxponders: 2xSTM16, 4xGbE/FC, 4xSTM1/4, 4xAny
10G Multirate transponders
10 Gbit/s TDM Muxponder (4xSTM-16/OC-48/ODU1); 10 Gbit/s Data Muxponder (8xGbE/FC);
40 Gbit/s transponder
40G Muxponder (4xSTM-64/OC-192/ODU-2/10GbE)
5.2.2 THE MARCONI-ERICSSON PRODUCT PORTFOLIO TODAY
OMS3200 FAMILY
Marconi's OMS3200 multi-service core switch platform delivers highly resilient optical core networking for Ethernet and Traditional TDM services. Designed around a high performance ASTN/ASON control plane the OMS3200 series delivers new, resilient network protection schemes and enables new client driven service revenue opportunities. The platform’s advanced control-plane and a wide range of native traffic interfaces make it the ideal solution for building highly resilient optical networks to support SDH and IP traffic.
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OMS MULTIHAULMultihaul is a versatile DWDM platform for optimum multi-service provision from the edge to the core of a network.
The Marconi Multihaul offers unique flexibility, best-in-class performance and operational synergies for highly optimized network applications, ranging from metro to ultra-long haul, maximizing service delivery and bandwidth usage. Incorporating a wide range of world firsts, innovative and future-proof technologies, the Multihaul improves an operator’s business planning, supporting new revenues opportunities of high speed data, storage, video and voice services, offering low first-in costs as well as minimal incremental investment to accommodate new services.
OMS2400
The OMS2400 platform is designed to provide network operators with a versatile and scalable system to aggregate Ethernet and TDM traffic, and transport it through the Metro network to support the diverse services. Client traffic types are essentially Ethernet (all variants) and SDH (carrying data traffic or not). The client signals are classified, aggregated and handled, as required, using advanced packet processing features. MPLS technology is used for path provisioning, routing, control plane, restoration and network protections to offer a full range of carrier-class capabilities. On the trunk side, the packets are aggregated, routed and transported into MPLS tunnels via Ethernet or SDH physical interfaces, according to the operator’s requirements and the network design, to/from the IP/MPLS and transport core networks. To provide an optimal degree of scalability, OMS2400 platform is articulated in four products: OMS2410, OMS2430, OMS2450 and OMS2470.
OMS1200 (UC-EX)
Configured from a range of high-density, flexible interface cards in two subrack options, OMS1200 products feature a comprehensive range of data and TDM interfaces. Two subracks and two integrated line/switch units form the UC & EX family.
OMS1222 & OMS1224, are housed in an ultra compact subrack that can be mounted vertically or horizontally to make the most of available space. OMS1252 and OMS1254, are housed in a compact full-width subrack. Two types of line/switch unit options allow maximum accessible capacities of 3.8Gbit/s and 8.4Gbit/s depending upon the subrack/switch combination. Each of the line/switch units has a choice of line rates simply enabled by the selection of the appropriate SFP module.
OMS1664 FAMILY
Marconi’s OMS1664 family of optical multi-service metro platforms enables Mobile operators to respond profitably to the demand for emerging broadband services. The OMS1664 family enables significant network simplification, and rapid and efficient delivery of multiple services.
The OMS1664 family is a high-density, full-connectivity service delivery platform as well as a compact, high-capacity traffic aggregation and switching platform supporting increasing levels of data traffic seamlessly alongside existing circuit services. The OMS1664 family provides the capability for a flatter, simpler network infrastructure, built from fewer elements, resulting in an overall lower cost of ownership.
OMS1400 FAMILY
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MSPP (Multi-Service Provisioning Platform) and a Carrier Class Ethernet platform specifically developed to enhance the metro-edge portfolio with advanced Ethernet capabilities.
Available in a compact shelf, with room for 6 interchangeable traffic modules, the product is able to deliver a flexible mix of voice and high-speed data services. With features which allow interworking with SDH, metro Ethernet or IP/MPLS core networks, the product is ideal for application in numerous environments such as in terminal configuration for customer premises delivery of business ethernet services, as a mixed service ring node, in the Radio Access network or as an SDH or Metro Ethernet hubbing/head-end node.
5.2.3 THE OMS 1400 (2007)
Key Features
• Easy implementation of new revenue generating services for rapid Return on Investment • Enables the progressive and evolutionary migration towards packet based networking, with Metro Ethernet switching and MPLS technologies built-in
• Allows service providers to leverage legacy network investments and services by adding new services, such as Metro Ethernet with real QoS
Versatility in Metro-Edge applications
Multiple service delivery
OMS 1400 is a hybrid Ethernet and SDH based device for grooming and transporting packet data and voice (TDM) traffic in a Metro Core Network.
The OMS 1400 enables the Service Provider to leverage legacy network investments by adding new services today (like Metro Ethernet Line and LAN services), alongside more traditional ones (like TDM leased lines) while at the same time preparing for the next migration step towards IP/MPLS.
Ethernet services in focus
Ethernet services can be configured either as Ethernet Line services in a point-to-point configuration similar to leased lines or as an Ethernet LAN service type, which is a multipoint service used to interconnect several locations to create a Wide
Area Network (WAN) (such as Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL), Internet/IP Access and EVPLAN/VPN). The product is transparent to the operation of the LAN and to the end-users, making the most of the ubiquity of Ethernet at the customer port.
Flexible deployment options
Thanks to the flexibility the Marconi OMS 1400 product offers, it can be configured either as a pure TDM or Ethernet transport or combination, for star, ring or point to point configurations.
Ideally placed within a low order SDH ring, as an SDH ‘hubbing node’ or for leased line hubbing, the product will also be equally at home on the customers premises (CLE). In Figure 5.2 we’re showing a possible topology that could be created using different Marconi-Ericsson products, more precisely the older MHL3000 standard and the newer different OMS families described in the last paragraphs.
Thanks to the flexible conception of these products old networks can easily connected to new ones in Metro-Edge contexts.
