Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

Table of Contents
1 Forewords ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background of TDM Circuit Emulation ................................................................................. 1 1.2 Technical Standards ............................................................................................................. 2 2 Technology Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 2.1 TDM PWE3 Technical Solution ............................................................................................ 1 2.2 Other Technical Solutions..................................................................................................... 5 3 Key Technologies.......................................................................................................................... 6 3.1 Data Jitter Buffer ................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Synchronous Timing Recovery............................................................................................. 6 3.3 Link Fault Detection .............................................................................................................. 6 3.4 Packet Delay Analysis .......................................................................................................... 7 3.5 Channelized and Nonchannelized Technologies ................................................................. 7 4 Typical Applications ..................................................................................................................... 9 4.1 Leased Line Access and Convergence of MAN ................................................................... 9 4.2 Cell Site Backhaul over Ethernet ........................................................................................ 10 5 Closing Remarks ......................................................................................................................... 12 Appendix A References .............................................................................................................. 13 Appendix B Abbreviations.......................................................................................................... 13

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

Abstract: Circuit Emulation Service over PSN technology carries the conventional TDM data over a Pocket Switched Network (PSN). Under PWE3, this technology transmits PDH and SDH data streams from edge to edge over a PSN through circuit emulation. This White Paper describes the background, implementation and scenarios of the technology. Key words: PSN, TDM, PWE3, circuit emulation, transparent transmission of service

1 Forewords
With the evolution of technology and the convergency of networks, it will be the main stream to transmit and switch data in the unit of packets in a next generation network (NGN). An IP network or an MPLS network is a typical PSN. An NGN, however, cannot be built in one day. The existing PDH and SDH networks for the public voice service on PSTNs will exist for a long time. A large amount of TDM devices in use will keep working. To protect the customers investment on their TDM devices, we find it necessary to allow a PSN to access TDM services and to transmit transparently TDM data. Standards development organizations have released their standards and solutions for transparent transmission of TDM circuit switched (CS) data over a PSN. Now, the TDM circuit emulation is the most mature solution.

1.1 Background of TDM Circuit Emulation

The TDM circuit emulation technology was originally developed for providing competitive solution of voice transmission over PSNs. Competitive with the VoIP technology, it provides a simpler handling process than the VoIP protocol and transmits voice service over an IP network. Early devices providing transparent transmission of TDM service can transparently transmit E1 and DS1/DS0 services only. PSN turns to a dominant solution for the NGN. In particular, the metro Ethernet technology is emerging. As a result, TDM circuit emulation develops to a major technology in the solutions for transmitting TDM service over a PSN. Now, protocol drafts or technical standards have been formulated on structure-aware (or structured) and structure-agnostic (or unstructured) transparent transmission of TDM E1, T1, E3 and T3
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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

services, structure-aware transparent transmission of SDH service, and transmission of PDH and SDH signaling.

1.2 Technical Standards

There are four industry bodies working on standard for TDM circuit emulation: IETF, ITU-T, MEF and MFA. They cooperate with each other, and the standards on transparent transmission of TDM service they develop are similar except the minor differences in technical details, for example, data encapsulation format. Among these organizations, IETF PWE3 Working Group plays a leading role in formulating the standards on transparent transmission of TDM service. Its standards not only deal with the data plane of the technology, but also the control and management planes. The standards of other organizations focus on the data encapsulation method. MEF standards describe how to encapsulate the raw TDM traffic directly into Ethernet frames. MFA standards describe how to carry TDM traffic over an MPLS network. ITU-T recommendations also deal with the data plane. They set down how to carry TDM data over MPLS and how to transport TDM data using IP. ITU-T also defines a clock transmission solution, which is important for TDM service.

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

2 Technology Introduction
IETF PWE3 Working Group plays a leading role in formulating standards for transparent transmission of TDM service. Such standards they formulate are all-inclusive and thus become a mainstream in the field. Now, we will introduce the transparent transmission of TDM service based on our analysis of the TDM PWE3 technical solution.

2.1 TDM PWE3 Technical Solution

1) PW principle

PW is a mechanism that carries the essential elements of an emulated service from a PE to another one or more PEs over a Packet Switched Network (PSN). It emulates a variety of services (ATM, FR, HDLC, PPP, TDM, and Ethernet) through a tunnel (IP, L2TP or MPLS) over a PSN. PSN can transmit the data payload of diversified services. Such a tunnel is called PWs. The internal data service carried by a PW is invisible to the core network. In other words, the core network is transparent to the CE data streams.

Figure 2-1 PW principle

The PW solution provides a technical framework. Under the framework, all services can be transmitted transparently over a PSN through PW emulation. The TDM PW emulation is a technology that uses PWs to emulate TDM data over a PSN. 2) Elements of TDM emulation service

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

To use a PW to emulate the transmission of TDM service over a PSN, the following elements must be carried to the other end of the PW. TDM data Frame format of TDM data TDM alarm and signaling at the side of AC Synchronous timing information of TDM 3) How to implement the TDM emulation service

To implement TDM circuit emulation, TDM data is encapsulated with a special circuit emulation packet header, which carries frame format, alarm, signaling and synchronous timing of the TDM data. The encapsulated packets are called PW packets, which are carried by a protocol such as IP, MPLS or L2TP to traverse the PSN. After arrival at the egress of the PW tunnel, they are decapsulated to reconstruct data streams of TDM CS service. Below introduced are encapsulation protocols of the TDM circuit emulation. a) SAToP (RFC 4553) RFC 4553 describes a method for encapsulating Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) bit-streams (T1, E1, T3, E3). It addresses only structure-agnostic transport, i.e., unframed E1, T1, E3 and T3. It segments all TDM services as bit streams and then encapsulates them for transmission over a PW tunnel. This protocol can transparently transmit TDM traffic data and synchronous timing information, which are two of the elements of TDM emulation service as described earlier. SAToP completely disregards any structure and PEs have no need to interpret the TDM data or to participate in the TDM signaling. The protocol is a simple way for transparent transmission of PDH bit-streams. The implementation of the protocol is so easy that the IETF released it as the earliest formal RFC. RFC 4553 defines three encapsulation modes for outer layer tunnel of PWs: IP/UDP, L2TPv3 and MPLS. In the IP/UDP mode, a PW packet is encapsulated with an IP/UDP header and each outer layer tunnel of PW is identified by a UDP port number. This encapsulation mode applies to a pure IP network. At both ends of a PW tunnel, an egress UTP port number and an ingress UTP port number must be manually bound to the same PW. This mode is applied in a limited scope and cannot be applied to networks on a large scale. In the L2TPv3 mode, a PW packet is encapsulated with an L2TPv3 header and each outer layer tunnel of PW is identified by a Session ID. The L2TPv3 protocol is used to set up an
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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

outer layer tunnel through negotiation and to assign different Session IDs to different PWs in the tunnel. This mode is used more flexibly than the IP/UDP mode but not as scalable as desired. In the MPLS mode, a PW packet is encapsulated with an MPLS label and LSP is used as the outer layer tunnel of a PW. The PW label is the inner most label of the MPLS label stack. Since labels can be assigned and managed dynamically through the LDP, so this mode is used more easily than the UDP/IP mode that requires manual binding. Further, MPLS labels are available in multiple layers. They support nesting of outer layer tunnels of PW and can apply to networks of a large scale. PWE3 TDM circuit emulation implemented in the MPLS encapsulation mode is more scalable and supports services more flexibly. The TDM circuit emulation service that Huawei now is developing supports the MPLS application mode. MPLS Encapsulation Table 2-1 SAToP MPLS label encapsulation format
Tunnel Label PW Label 0000 RTV P X L R CC RESV FRG M Length PT Time Stamp SSRC Identifier TDM DATA Exp Exp S 1 TTL TTL Sequence Number RTP Sequence Number

b)

CESoPSN protocol Compared with SAToP, CESoPSN transmits emulated structured (NxDS0) Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) signals. That is, it can identify and process the frame structure and transmit signaling in TDM frames. Structured E1, for example, comprises 32 timeslots. Except slot 0, the other 31 timeslots each carries a line of 64Kbps voice service. Timeslot 0 transmits signaling and frame delimiters. The CESoPSN protocol can identify frame structure of TDM service. It may not transmit idle timeslot channels, but only extracts useful timeslots of CE devices from the E1 traffic stream and then encapsulates them into PW packets for transmission. In addition, it can identify and transmit CAS and CCS in E1 traffic streams. Likewise, the CESoPSN solution provides three encapsulation modes for outer layer tunnels of PWs: IP/UDP, L2TPv3 and MPLS. Unlike SAToP, CESoPSN carries TDM traffic

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

data in a frame structure inside PWs and adds an M field to the PW control word in a PW packet to identify the signaling check at the side of some ACs. CESoPSN that uses the MPLS encapsulation has more advantages than the other two modes. Huawei products supporting transparent transmission of TDM services support the CESoPSN that uses the MPLS encapsulation. MPLS Encapsulation Table 2-2 CESoPSN MPLS label encapsulation format
Tunnel Label PW Label 0000 RTV P X L R CC M FRG M Length PT Time Stamp SSRC Identifier Time slot1 Time slot5 Time slot1 Time slot5 Time slot2 Time slot3 Time slotN (Frame 2#..) Time slot2 Time slot3 Time slotN (Frame 1#) Time slot4 Time slot4 Exp Exp S 1 TTL TTL Sequence Number RTP Sequence Number

CESoPSN provides a solution for identifying and transmitting CAS in addition to TDM traffic data. The encapsulation format of CAS is shown in the following table: Table 2-3 CESoPSN signaling encapsulation formatMPLS mode
MPLS Label Stack 0000 RTV P X L R CC M FRG M Length PT Time Stamp SSRC Identifier Encoded CE application state entry for the DS0 channel #1 Sequence Number RTP Sequence Number

| Encoded CE application state entry for the DS0 channel #N In addition to a circuit emulation solution for E1, T1, E3 and T3 of PDH series, the IETF PWE3 Working Group defines a structure-aware circuit emulation solution for SONET/SDH high-order

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

and low-order paths. TDM traffic data such as VC11/VC12 and VC2 is transparently transmitted through PWE3. These solutions are not detailed here.

2.2 Other Technical Solutions

In addition to IETF PWE3 Working Group, MEF, MFA and ITU-T define protocols and standards for circuit emulation. For example, MEF8.0 standards define TDM circuit emulation packets encapsulated by bare Ethernet. Emulated TDM CS data is distinguished based on the emulated circuit identifier (ECID).
Destination Address

Ethernet Services Layer

Source Address VLAN tags (optional) Ethertype Emulated Circuit Identifier (ECID) CESoETH Control Word RTP (optional)

Adaptation Function

CES Application Data

TDM Payload

Figure 2-2 Mapping between functional layers and packet encapsulation

In MEF8.0, the CESoETH control word is completely compatible with the PW control word defined by IETF. The RTP control word also complies with the IETF RFC 3550. It is designed on the framework of transparent transmission of TDM service along a PWE3 tunnel, except that the bearer layer is bare Ethernet.

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3 Key Technologies
3.1 Data Jitter Buffer
After PW packets traverse a PSN and arrive at the egress PE, they may align out of order or arrive at different intervals. For the reconstruction of TDM data streams at the egress PE, jitter buffer is needed to smoothen the intervals of PW packets and to re-order the mis-ordered packets. It is necessary to come to a compromise between the jitter buffer size and the performance. The jitter buffer of a large size can absorb great jitters of packet transmission in the network but results in a large delay in reconstructing the TDM data streams. It will be a good approach that the size of this buffer can be locally configurable to allow accommodation to the PSN-specific packet delay variation. The TDM circuit emulation products now developed by Huawei allow users to configure different sizes for jitter buffer with a command.

3.2 Synchronous Timing Recovery

A circuit switched TDM network (for example, SDH network) is naturally capable of transmitting synchronous timing information of the network. But a majority of PSNs, in particular, the present Ethernet networks, do not provide this function. Such networks can use the following solutions. 1) Adaptive packet recovery algorithm. At the egress of PW packets, the synchronous timing information is extracted through the time window smoothing and adaptation algorithm so that the reconstructed TDM data streams can be roughly synchronous with those at the transmitting end. But this algorithm has a great limitation. In particular, it cannot restore the synchronous timing information when the network loses many packets or has a sharp change of transmission delay. 2) Clock transmission over synchronous Ethernet. Based on the idea of network-wide synchronous timing transmission of the SDH system, reconstruct the present Ethernet network of asynchronous clock system. 3) TDM circuit emulation transmits service data only, while the synchronous timing information is transmitted by a separate synchronous timing system. For example, use the GPS system or synchronous clock network to transmit the clock.

3.3 Link Fault Detection

Link fault detection comprises a series of actions: link fault detection for the AC side, link fault detection for the PW tunnel, and notification to the peer and switching of the faulty link after a
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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

fault is detected. Now, there are technical drafts that define the link fault detection at the AC side and notification to the peer. As to link fault detection for PW tunnels, many technologies are available, for example, MPLS-OAM and Ethernet OAM.

3.4 Packet Delay Analysis

For real time services such as voice transmission, data delay and jitter greatly affect the quality of service and thus should be considered. When TDM services are transparently transmitted by TDM PW emulation, data delay is made up of packetization latency, service processing delay and network transmission delay. Packetization latency is the time spent in encapsulating TDM traffic streams into PW packets. This latency is specific to the TDM circuit emulation technology. For example, the rate of E1 is 2.048 Mbps, each frame includes 32 timeslots totaling to 256 bits, 8000 frames are transmitted per second, and the transmission of each frame takes 0.125ms. In the structured encapsulation mode, every four frames are encapsulated into one PW packet, and the packetization latency for encapsulating a PW packet is 0.5ms (4 X 0.125ms). The encapsulation time increases in a linear manner with the number of data frames encapsulated in a PW packet. More frames encapsulated in a PW packet lead to a larger packetization latency. Service processing delay is the time spent in packet processing, including packet validity check, packet filtering, checksum calculation, packet encapsulation, and packet receiving and sending. This delay depends on the service processing capability of devices, and is invariable for a certain device. Network transmission delay is the time that a PW packet spends in traveling from the ingress PE to the egress PE through a PSN. This delay varies greatly with the topology and traffic of the network. It is a main contributor to service jitter. At present, jitter can be absorbed by a jitter buffer technology, but delay cannot be absorbed. The delay of TDM services is a combination of the above factors.

3.5 Channelized and Nonchannelized Technologies

In TDM PW emulation, nonchannelized service transmission is unstructured transmission, which does not identify data format in TDM traffic but only processes TDM data as serial bit streams. RFC 4553 (SAToP) structure-agnostic encapsulation protocol requires the unstructured circuit emulation of E1 to support service processing of 256 bytes as a basic payload unit. In other words, although it does not identify the E1 frame structure, it must
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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

segment TDM bit streams according to integer multiples of E1 frame length and then encapsulate them into PW packets. In addition, the RFC 4553 requires unstructured T1 circuit emulation to support service processing of 192 bytes as a basic payload unit. It requires unstructured E3/T3 circuit emulation to support service processing of 1024 bytes as a basic payload unit. The counterpart is channelized service, which is emulation of structured TDM PW. It must identify frame format in TDM traffic. TDM bit streams must be segmented at frame delimiters. For example, E1 frames must be segmented at the start of timeslot 0. Since the segmentation begins from the frame delimiter, 32 timeslots in an E1 frame can all be identified, making the structured processing very easy. T1 and E3/T3 apply the same structured processing mode as E1. The unstructured mode does not identify frame format in TDM data streams. It is implemented more simply and generally, compared with the structured mode. The emulation solution for unstructured TDM PW applies easily to devices in a traditional data network that take E1/T1 as a synchronous serial interface, that is, ignore the frame format and use net channel transmission. Implementation of the structured (channelized) mode is complex. It must identify frame delimiters in TDM data streams. In addition, it must identify and process timeslots in a frame and the signaling carried by specific timeslots. If a TDM interface works in the frame mode, emulation of structured TDM PW helps improve the bandwidth utilization in case of communications through some timeslots of E1/T1. Emulation of structured TDM PW can discriminate the timeslots in use from idle timeslots in an E1 circuit. On this basis, it can encapsulate the timeslots in use in PW packets for transmission and discards the idle timeslots. This saves the network transmission bandwidth. In addition, the structured mode allows timeslots of different E1/T1 interfaces to be interleaved for higher bandwidth utilization.

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4 Typical Applications
4.1 Leased Line Access and Convergence of MAN

Figure 4-1 Leased line access and convergence of MAN

As shown in Figure 4-1, the TDM circuit emulation technology can be used for leased line access and convergence of MAN. For example, each branch in the LAN campus network accesses the campus network through a PBX switch. The PBX switches provide E1 voice access to implement communications inside the campus. They can access the PSTN through the campus network. Since the TDM circuit emulation service emulates the physical TDM transmission, it does not perceive the actual service transmitted inside E1. DDN, FR and ATM services carried on E1 can all be transmitted transparently through TDM circuit emulation.

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4.2 Cell Site Backhaul over Ethernet

Figure 4-2 Cell Site backhaul over Ethernet

The traditional Cell Site backhaul is transmitted over a PDH/SDH network. Some wireless carriers do not have fixed network infrastructure, so the cell site backhaul requires leasing an expensive E1 trunk transmission line on a fixed network. The advent of transparent transmission of TDM service presents a new choice to wireless carriers. The metro Ethernet technology and transparent transmission of TDM service are combined to transmit services between cell sites and the cell site controller (CSC) in the same city. This method is simple and cost-effective. At present, the transparent transmission of TDM service does not function well in the perspective of synchronous clock transmission. In the scenarios where adaptive packet recovery algorithm is used to transmit clock synchronization information, it has high requirements for QoS such as transmission delay and jitter. Some equipment vendors recommend that carriers transmit synchronous timing information by an external synchronous timing system (for example, GPS clock system) outside the TDM service transmission system to ensure clock synchronization of the wireless access network. For the fractional E1 interface between a GSM cell site and the CSC, data can be transmitted by structured TDM circuit emulation.

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN

Figure 4-3 An example of channelized E1

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5 Closing Remarks
TDM Circuit Emulation Service (CES) appears as a competitive technology to VoIP to transmit voice over IP networks. With the emerging metro Ethernet, it will develop to a major technology for transparent transmission of PDH/SDH services over a PSN. IP based NGN is a trend that will lead to elimination of the PDH or SDH technology. The abundant TDM devices running on the existing networks will continue to be used for a long time. As an equipment vendor providing overall solutions for the NGN, Huawei launches data communication products that provide the TDM circuit emulation function. The products comply with the technical specifications for TDM circuit emulation defined by IETF PWE3 Working Group. They adopt the MPLS encapsulation mode, which is characterized by good network interworking and flexibly function scalability. In addition, Huawei presents featured solutions for link fault detection and protection strategy, and the combination of physical synchronous clock and packet recovered clock. These protect users investment on the traditional TDM devices. They are an innovation and experiment that help users smoothly evolve to the NGN.

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Appendix A
1) 2) 3)

References

RFC 3916, Requirements for Pseudo-Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3),IETF RFC 3985, Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) Architecture,IETF RFC 4197, Requirements for Edge-to-Edge Emulation of Time Division Multiplexed(TDM) Circuits over Packet Switching Networks,IETF

4)

RFC 4553, Structure-Agnostic Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) over Packet (SAToP), IETF

5) 6) 7)

Internet Draft, draft-ietf-pwe3-cesopsn-07, IETF MEF8.0 , Metro Ethernet Forum MFA 8.0.0, Emulation of TDM Circuits over MPLS Using Raw Encapsulation Implementation Agreement, MFA

Appendix B
Abbreviation CES PWE3 PSN TDM PDH SDH SONET IETF PSTN CE PE AC SAToP CESoPSN CAS CCS MEF MFA

Abbreviations
Full name Circuit Emulation Service Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge Packet Switched Networks Time Division Multiplex Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy Synchronous Digital Hierarchy Synchronous Optical NETwork Internet Engineering Task Force Public Switched Telephone Network Customer Edge Provider Edge Attachment Circuit Structure-Agnostic TDM over Packet Circuit Emulation Services over Packet Switch Network Channel Associated Signaling Common Channel Signaling Metro Ethernet Forum MPLS Forum Frame Relay Forum The ATM Forum

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Technical White Paper for Circuit Emulation Service over PSN Abbreviation ITU-T Full name International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector

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