Evolving metro transport and switching infrastructures: path to efficient Ethernet services for carrier networks

This white paper explores enhancements to existing metro architectures that can serve as a catalyst for a broader modernization and optimization of incumbent carriers' service infrastructures. Included in this white paper are strategies for the optimal use of existing capital resources, and pragmatic migration steps to ease and facilitate network evolution. With the gradual adoption of new and more intelligent networking technologies, incumbent carriers can accelerate migration toward the more dynamic and data-centric service architectures that will fuel future network growth and increase competitive differentiation. These service architectures must support the cost-effective deployment of new service offerings such as gigabit Ethernet over SDH. Key technology enablers for these agile network architectures, including optical routing and signaling, virtual concatenation (VC: G.707), link capacity adjustment scheme (LCAS: G.7042) and generic framing procedure (GFP: G.7041), are also discussed.