VCAT-LCAS in a clamshell

Author

Bernstein, Greg ; Caviglia, Diego ; Rabbat, Richard ; Helvoort, Huub Van

Volume

44

Issue

5

fYear

2006

fDate

5/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

34

Lastpage

36

Abstract

Virtual concatenation (VCAT) is a standardized layer 1 inverse multiplexing technique that can be applied to the optical transport network (OTN), synchronous optical network (SONET), synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), and plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH) component signals. By inverse multiplexing, it combines multiple links at a particular layer into aggregate links to achieve a commensurate increase in available bandwidth on the aggregate link. While any inverse multiplexing scheme is about "more bandwidth", the VCAT/LCAS is a general technique that can enable a fairly broad range of network features such as (1) right sizing bandwidth for data applications, (2) bandwidth extraction from a mesh network, (3), bandwidth on demand and IP traffic engineering, and (4) provides new forms of protection-restoration and graceful degradation. In this paper, the authors have given a quick overview of VCAT/LCAS technology and just a few examples of its applications

Keywords

Internet; multiplexing; protocols; signal processing; telecommunication links; IP traffic engineering; LCAS technology; VCAT technology; bandwidth extraction; data applications; inverse multiplexing technique; link capacity adjustment scheme; mesh network; virtual concatenation; Aggregates; Bandwidth; Data engineering; Data mining; Mesh networks; Optical devices; Optical fiber networks; SONET; Synchronous digital hierarchy; Telecommunication traffic;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MCOM.2006.1637944

Filename

1637944