Carrier ethernet network solutions: transport protocol and optical backplane design

• Main Author: Estevez, Claudio Ignacio
• Published: Georgia Institute of Technology 2010
• Subjects: Carrier ethernet; Transport protocol; VCSEL; QoS; Optical coupling; Ethernet services; Ethernet (Local area network system); Computer network protocols
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1853/33999

The Metro Ethernet network (MEN) expands the advantages of Ethernet to cover areas wider than LAN. MENs running Ethernet Services as specified by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) are known as Carrier Ethernet Networks (CENs). CENs can cover not only metro areas, but it can expand to cover global areas by connecting multiple MENs. Next-generation CENs are expected to support 100 GbE. With arising technologies for Ultra Long-haul (ULH) networks the bandwidth bottleneck of CENs is shifting to other areas like the transport layer protocol (such as the Transport Control Protocol or TCP) and the chip-to-chip channel capacity found at the network edge, which in general has an electrical backplane. Traditional TCP is well known to have difficulties reaching the full available bandwidth, due to its inefficient AIMD mechanisms under a high-delay-bandwidth-product environment. At the network edge, network equipment with electrical backplanes poses many problems including inductive-capacitive effects that limit its bandwidth. These are the two main issues addressed in this work. To resolve the transport layer issue, this work proposes a transport protocol that fully utilizes the available bandwidth while preserving TCP-friendliness and providing QoS support that is compatible with Ethernet Services. It can guarantee throughputs above the Committed Information Rate (CIR), which is specified in the Service Level Agreement (SLA). To resolve the physical layer limitations, a novel optical coupling technique is examined to encourage the use of optical backplanes for network-edge and core technology. The proposed technique consists of aligning the normal of the laser emission plane, waveguide plane and the normal of the photodetector active region plane with the purpose of reducing optical power loss caused by common methods of light manipulation. By addressing the shortcomings of both Traditional TCP and electrical backplane technology the overall throughput can be significantly increased.