Advanced SONET/SDH Testing and Analysis

12th, Jul 2024

Welcome to GL's latest newsletter, where we discuss our solutions for testing Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) traffic with our SonetExpert™ platform at speeds up to OC-192/STM-64 networks.

SonetExpert Unchannelized Analyzer

Overview

GL’s SonetExpert™ is capable of SONET/SDH testing over OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4, OC-48/STM-16 and OC-192/STM-64 networks. With two dedicated SONET/SDH ports per hardware unit, multiple units can connect to one PC for increased port density. The hardware/software control is via a web-based interface accessible from any browser on devices such as PCs, laptops, and tablets. The analyzer supports Bit Error Rate Testing (BERT) over Raw SONET/SDH testing up to OC-192/STM-64 and various applications such as ATM and PoS up to OC-12/STM-4 rates.

Comprehensive BER Testing

SonetExpert™ can perform BER testing over OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4, OC-48/STM-16, and OC-192/STM-64 SONET/SDH rates. It treats the entire OC-3 to OC-192 as a single large pipe, transmitting and analyzing BERT traffic as a whole for the entire pipe using concatenated STS-3c, STS-12c, STS-48c, and STS-192c signals. This approach helps to test and qualify the entire SONET/SDH pipe before delving into the smaller pipes carried within. Additionally, it supports BER testing over PoS and ATM payloads up to OC-12/STM-4.

Comprehensive Alarm Monitoring and Reporting

SonetExpert™ monitors and reports various SONET/SDH alarms, including Section, Path, Line, and BERT alarms, in real-time. Alarms are plotted on a graph, allowing up to seven days of historical alarm data to be viewed. Also supported is alarm generation and error insertion, and hardware indications for Loss of Signal and Frames.

Real-Time Protocol Analysis

PoS/ATM/Raw captured traffic can be analyzed in real-time. Protocol analysis provides detailed analysis of higher-layer protocols (for PoS and ATM) and decodes SONET/SDH frames in real-time on both ports simultaneously.

Advanced Traffic Capture and Playback

SonetExpert™ captures wirespeed traffic on two ports simultaneously to a file on the hard disk and features hardware filtering and timestamping. The captured traffic can be played back from a file on both ports simultaneously. In PoS mode, SonetExpert™ captures PPP packets. In ATM mode it captures ATM cells. In Raw mode, it captures Raw SONET/SDH frames. Similarly, for playback, SonetExpert™ can play back PPP packets, ATM cells, or Raw SONET/SDH frames on a single port or both ports.

Efficient Traffic Analysis

SonetExpert™ examines incoming traffic on SONET/SDH interfaces to identify and display its structure. Results appear in an intuitive multicolor graphical display, highlighting subchannels within the main pipe down to STS-3 signal. Different colors indicate equipped or unequipped channels. Clicking on an equipped channel reveals further details including substructures down to the T1/E1 level. This feature provides a comprehensive overview of incoming SONET/SDH traffic.

Key Features

  • Supports BERT over Raw SONET/SDH for OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4, OC-48/STM-16, and OC-192/STM-64
  • Supports BERT over PoS and ATM on OC-3/STM-1 and OC-12/STM-4
  • Monitors and reports various SONET/SDH Alarms (Section/Path/Line as well as BERT Alarms) in real time
  • Provides Loss of Signal and Loss of Frames hardware alarms indication
  • Introduce various Alarms and Errors in real time
  • Supports the connection of an external clock to each port for an accurate clock frequency source
  • Independently adjust the transmit clock frequency for each port
  • Protocol analysis provides detailed analysis of higher layer protocols (for PoS and ATM) and decode of SONET/SDH frames in real time on both ports simultaneously
  • Capture Raw SONET/SDH or PoS/ATM wirespeed (OC-3/STM-1 and OC-12/STM-4) traffic on two ports simultaneously to a file on hard disk, with hardware filtering and timestamping
  • Playback captured Raw SONET/SDH or PoS/ATM wirespeed traffic (for OC-3/STM-1 and OC-12/STM-4) traffic on two ports simultaneously from a file on hard disk with highly accurate timing (as captured in the traffic file)
  • View incoming SONET/SDH traffic in an easy and intuitive graphical display to quickly identify the structure of unknown SONET/SDH traffic
  • Web interface allows multiple users to connect to a single web server and independently run tests on different hardware units

In addition to SonetExpert™ unchannelized analyzer, GL also offers the SonetExpert™ Channelized (SEC) analyzer, a multiservice test tool comprising hardware and software for capturing, monitoring, simulating and analyzing protocols over SONET-SDH links. The SonetExpert™ analyzer, along with SFP+ based optical ports, supports channelized SONET and SDH mapping of T1/E1 payloads. For more details, visit the SonetExpert™ Channelized (SEC) Analyzer webpage.

GL also offers the high-speed Ethernet and IP test solution PacketExpert™ 10GX on the same hardware platform. It features wirespeed BERT, RFC 2544/Y.1564/RFC 6349 tests, packet capture, event-driven triggers and actions, traffic playback, impairment generation, and stacked VLAN/MPLS tests. For more details, visit PacketExpert™- Multi-Functional Ethernet/IP Test Solution webpage.


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