7.3 Carrier Grade Ethernet
7.3.1 Carrier Ethernet
Reliability is one of the attributes of the term Carrier Ethernet as defined by MEF [12]. How is reliability of Carrier Ethernet for the mobile backhaul then achieved?
The MEF service is delivered by a service provider. The provider network is carrier grade, and built with his technology of choice for resilience. The user sees the service through UNI characteristics. See Figure 7.9.
Figure 7.9 Provider network and customer network.
Provider's network is isolated from the customer networks and the resilience deployed by the provider is not visible to the customer. Similarly, the resilience within the customer site is separate from that of the provider network.
Standardization bodies have addressed the topic of carrier grade Ethernet with solutions that differ from the native Ethernet concepts. From the service user viewpoint, availability is simply one characteristic of the service. How it is implemented is a subject for the service provider.
Availability of Metro Ethernet services may be supported by multiple technologies in the provider network. In the case of Sonet/SDH, protection switching at the Sonet/SDH layer can be used. As with TDM in general, a drawback is the static and rigid capacity allocation. Virtual concatenation feature of NG-SDH makes the network more flexible, however the root of the issue remains.
Often Ethernet ...
Get Mobile Backhaul now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
