Advanced SONET/SDH Testing and Analysis

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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