Indeed, fiber-optic and WDM technologies are very well-aligned to support these
needs. In fact, the ongoing growth in Carrier Ethernet services is perhaps one of the
main factors behind the post-bubble resurgence of the optical networking market. In
all, this is leading to a very strong convergence between the data and optical networking
layers. Consider the individual MEF attributes for Carrier Ethernet:
?– Quality of service (QoS) The MEF defines various QoS attributes as part of
a client??™s end-to-end SLA profile. These include the connection??™s committed information
rate (CIR), excess information rate (EIR), committed burst size (CBS),
and excess burst size (EBS). In general, these parameters are more germane for
packet-switching implementations that tend to deliver relative ???soft??? QoS between
competing services, such as MPLS, Ethernet switching, and resilient packet ring
(RPR). Hence, the inherent circuit-based nature of WDM ensures its ability to
provide ???hard??? QoS with full-rate guarantees, minimal delay, and near zero jitter
and loss.
?– Scalability This MEF requirement stresses the need to support large numbers
(100,000 range) of Ethernet virtual connections (EVC) and high aggregate system/
link scalability (tens of gigabits).
Pages:
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540