• fiber
• PMA32
• OMS
• Marconi
• DWDM
• fibra
• portfolio
• networks
• reti
• Ericsson
• optical
• ottica

One of the big technological challenges for the very next future is to reach large capacities in data traffic throughout mesh backbone networks. We can think of backbone networks as private architectures owned by a single or more than one provider which constitute the main road by which optical signals carry long distance voice/data traffic. To identify the concept, they can be viewed as railway networks owned by different companies which spread throughout a territory. To connect the different local areas to the main structure of these backbones OADMs (Add Drop Multiplexers) and OXCSs (Optical Cross Connects) are deployed: the former is a standard which allows to insert or drop a single traffic flow, the latter is a component used to interconnect many rings to the main infrastructure.
PMA32 by Marconi-Ericsson is an OADM and had an important role in the development of the Marconi photonic brand – which is today part of the Ericsson group – and in the creation of a large portfolio of different products for the deploying and the maintenance of optical point-to-point links, rings or mesh networks.

To deeply penetrate the interesting subject and to valuate the hardware involved in this project it was necessary to shortly analyze the optical components used to build optical networks. CHAPTER 1 is about the general features of optical DWDM networks that can be useful to understand the PMA32’s architecture. We’re going to see which components are used to transmit and to receive the optical channels, which kind of multiplexers or demultiplexers can be created with the actual optical techniques, and the EDFA amplifiers’ features. Other interesting elements are the DWDM basics and the control & management of optical networks.

CHAPTER 2 is a brief presentation about the PMA32 OADM, explaining its mechanical structure, the internal traffic architecture, the MUX/DEMUX mechanism, the cross-connection and pass-through connection concepts and also the most common alarms raised up by the PMA32 itself. This book is also supposed to be an easy-to-use guide to operators on optical networks.

The testing of the PMA32 is analyzed in CHAPTER 3: after a configuration of the cross-connections / pass-through connections and of the transponding / TX / RX cards, we are explaining the software provided by Marconi, which allows to monitor the power levels at each component of the machine. We’re going to valuate the impact of an AX4000 traffic generator/analyzer and of a router tester on the PMA32, when sending different kinds of traffic flow. The main network performance parameters will be encountered by these tests. This chapter will also introduce the main concepts about protection on a link/ring, provided by the PMA32 to let the network work correctly even after a fault or failure.
Finally we’ll implement an optical ring involving 2 PMAs, measuring the loss of packets when a failure happens, and the packet latency in different configurations of the optical paths.

CHAPTER 4 describes the implementation of our final goal: an optical network involving 3 PMA32s and a multiplexed signal consisting of two Gigabit Ethernet flows and an ATM/SONET flow. We will valuate the obtained optical core calculating the latency values throughout the ring, thus tracing the optical architecture’s complexity; besides we will test a video streaming from a computer at one end of the ring to a second one at the other end.
Grid computing applications will complete this chapter as an interesting scenario for the optical infrastructure just implemented.

We are going to see in a short presentation the families of products produced by Ericsson after the PMA32; CHAPTER 5 is to be a simple view on the Ericsson’s actual portfolio.

CHAPTER 6 concludes this book with a wide selection of backbone networks implemented in Italy and Europe by some providers. The main subject of the chapter is to locate the PMA and the following families in the general situation of mesh all-optical networks deployed in local, metro, regional and national areas, trying to trace the future challenges and trends about backbone networks and their more and more simplified protocol layering.

With this book I’m going to explain months of work to the reader, step by step, as simply as possible, not only showing the results of the activity, but also highlighting the most important features of this fascinating subject.