Friday, November 18, 2011

Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET)

Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) are standardized multiplexing protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs). At low transmission rates data can also be transferred via an electrical interface. The method was developed to replace the Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH) system for transporting large amounts of telephonecalls and data traffic over the same fiber without synchronization problems.
Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET)  - seminar topic
 SONET generic criteria are detailed in Telcordia Technologies Generic Requirements document GR-253-CORE. Generic criteria applicable to SONET and other transmission systems (e.g., asynchronous fiber optic systems or digital radio systems) are found in Telcordia GR-499-CORE.


SONET and SDH, which are essentially the same, were originally designed to transport circuit mode communications (e.g., DS1, DS3) from a variety of different sources, but they were primarily designed to support real-time, uncompressed, circuit-switched voice encoded in PCM format.The primary difficulty in doing this prior to SONET/SDH was that the synchronization sources of these various circuits were different.

 This meant that each circuit was actually operating at a slightly different rate and with different phase. SONET/SDH allowed for the simultaneous transport of many different circuits of differing origin within a single framing protocol. SONET/SDH is not itself a communications protocol per se, but a transport protocol.


Due to SONET/SDH's essential protocol neutrality and transport-oriented features, SONET/SDH was the obvious choice for transporting Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) frames. It quickly evolved mapping structures and concatenated payload containers to transport ATM connections. In other words, for ATM (and eventually other protocols such as Ethernet), the internal complex structure previously used to transport circuit-oriented connections was removed and replaced with a large and concatenated frame (such as OC-3c) into which ATM cells, IP packets, or Ethernet frames are placed.


Definition: SONET is a physical layer network technology designed to carry large volumes of traffic over relatively long distances on fiber optic cabling. SONET was originally designed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for the USA public telephone network in the mid-1980s.


SONET possesses several characteristics that make it appealing on the Internet today:

SONET defines clear interoperability standards between different vendors' products SONET can carry nearly any higher-level protocol (including IP), and SONET includes built-in support for ease of management and maintenance.

The speed and cost of SONET make the technology competitive with alternatives like ATM and Gigabit Ethernet.

Also Known As: Synchronous Optical NETwork  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_optical_networking  

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