Are people still building SONET networks from scratch?

Julien Goodwin nanog at studio442.com.au
Fri Sep 7 12:50:31 UTC 2012


On 07/09/12 02:38, Will Orton wrote:
> Having much more experience with ethernet/packet/MPLS setups, we are trying to 
> get the client to admit that 1g/10g waves running ethernet with QoS would be as 
> good as or better in terms of latency, jitter, and loss for their packet data. 
> So far they will barely listen to the arguments. And then going the next leap 
> and showing them that we could work towards <50ms protection switching with 
> MPLS/BFD/etc packet-based protocols is another stretch.
> 
> Am I missing something here that my customer isn't, or is it the other way 
> around? 

A few of the engineers at $DAYJOB still try and claim SONET is easier to
troubleshoot, but that hasn't been my practical experience.

With ethernet it's something like:
- Layer 1 - light levels (DoM on nearly everything)
- Layer 1 - link pulse
- Layer 2 - can I send frames

SONET it's, in practice:
- Layer 1 - light levels (DoM on newer kit, SOL on older)
- Layer 2 - Seemingly random collection of alarms
- Layer 2 - Is PPP up?

Sure being able tell a provider that our kit is showing a particular
alarm can sometimes be helpful, but for every time that's been helpful
I've seen multiple circuits down for timing, often for no explainable
reason (I have atomic standards at home, and still can't explain a few
of the cases I've seen).

As others have said doing a "diverse 1/10g ethernet" quote and a
"protected SONET" quote may be worthwhile, and adding a 20% pad to the
SONET one for staff training may also be perfectly justifiable.

Also other then the ONS15300 series (which I'm amazed haven't been
discontinued) I can see nothing that actually offers OC3 line ports,
building something new using those today seems like using a 2500 as a
console server, sure for a lab or demo perhaps, but otherwise I'm
staying well away from them.




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