ABSTRACT Network Survivability: Protection in SONET/SDH

Similar schemes are used in both SONET and SDH but their nomenclature is different. In this way, each protection scheme can be associated with a specific layer in the network. SONET layer includes a path layer (called channel layer in SDH) and a line layer (called multiplex section MS in SDH). We can find some different topologies, and depending of these topologies different protection mechanisms are used: 1. Point-to-Point Link: there are two fundamental types of protection mechanisms: 1+1 protection and 1:1 or more generally 1: N protection. Both operate in the line (SONET) or multiplex section (SDH) layer. a. 1+1 Protection: traffic is transmitted simultaneously on two separate fibers from the source to the destination. The destination simply selects one of the two fibers for reception. If that fiber is cut, the destination simply switches over the other fiber and continues to receive data. This form of protection is very fast and requires no signalling protocol between the two ends. ( see figure 1) Figure 1. 1+1 protection mechanism b. 1:1 or more generally 1: N protection: there are still two fibers from the source to the destination. However, traffic is transmitted over only one fiber at a time, say, the working fiber . If that fiber is cut, the source and destination both switch over to the other protection fiber (see figure 2) . APS protocol is required for signalling between the source and the destination. It is not as quick as 1+1 mechanism in restoring the traffic because of the added communication overhead involved. However, it offers two main advantages over 1+1 mechanism: the first is that under normal operation, the protection fiber is unused. Therefore, it can be used to transmit lower-priority traffic. Second advantage is that 1:1 protection can be extended so as to share a single protection fiber among many working fibers. In a more general 1: N protection scheme, N working fibers share a single protection fiber. This arrangement can handle the failure of any single working fiber. Note that APS protocol must ensure that only the traffic on one of the failure fibers is switched over the protection fiber. Figure 2. 1:1 protection mechanism