Overview The LoopStar SONET product family enables an easy, cost-effective way for large multi-site enterprise customers and campuses to interconnect each site or building using their own fiber or leased dark fiber. Since large enterprise customers typically have multiple sites in a metro area, many of these sites need to be interconnected, and connectivity to corporate headquarters is often required as well. However, building a physical mesh network can become expensive, so enterprise customers look for a cost-effective solution that can interconnect their sites. Similar issues apply to large government, educational, military, or healthcare organizations that have multiple buildings at a common site. Using the LoopStar product family, enterprise customers can build private SONET rings using a single fiber pair to create a scalable, highly reliable, and secure network. Scalability LoopStar SONET products scale from an OC-3 to an OC-192, and from a single 10BT to multiple Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. In addition, the ring topology and support mechanisms that are available with SONET networks enable enterprises to add a site or a building to an existing network without affecting the traffic on that network. With support for 802.1QnQ, the LoopStar SONET platforms provide for VLAN nesting, which makes VLANs available that traditionally were used for a corporate or an institution’s backbone network. This also increases the available VLAN address space, which could become an issue in extremely large organizations. APPLICATION NOTE www.adc.com • +1-952-938-8080 • 1-800-366-3891 LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions Private SONET Networks for Enterprise Customers Reliability Network Protection For customers who have existing SONET networks, the merits of network protection in a SONET network are well known. With LoopStar SONET products, enterprise customers can extend five 9’s reliability to their internal network. Furthermore, these products support LAPS, UPSR, and BLSR (1600 only), which means that regardless of the topology chosen (ring or linear), LoopStar products will provide an effective solution. Since many enterprise applications have hub and spoke architectures between the corporate data center/PBX and each office, SONET protection provides the most effective way of safeguarding the network and a company’s most valuable asset: information. In addition, by using the LoopStar SONET products, the hub and spoke architecture could be virtual over a protected fiber ring or physical requiring linear protection. System Protection While the LoopStar 800, 810, and 1600 all provide network protection, the LoopStar 800 and 1600 also provide card-level protection for both the optics and the cross-connects. In business class networks, this results in optimal uptime, due to the multiple layers of protection involved in a SONET network. With protection for both the cross-connect and optical cards, single failure points are eliminated in the LoopStar 800 and 1600. This is due to the ability of the system to independently switch the active cross-connect card from the active optical module. With both network and system-level protection, the LoopStar 800 and 1600 provide maximum reliability even in cases where multiple failures may have occurred. Electrical Protection In addition to providing network and system-level protection, the LoopStar 800 and 1600 provide electrical protection on the TDM cards and support RSTP on the common 8-port Fast Ethernet card. For the TDM cards (DS1 and DS3), one card can protect up to four other cards (n:1 with n=3 for the LoopStar 800 and n=4 for the 1600). This flexible protection feature makes available slots that would have been reserved as protection slots for other card types. Security Discrete Channels Since the events of 9/11, security has become an increasingly important aspect of enterprise networks. In addition to reliability, SONET networks are very secure by providing discrete channels (STS-ns or VT1.5s) for specific customers or services. Unlike a packet network where each device accesses the header of each packet to determine where the packet must be sent, a SONET network sends the channels only to the location where they are destined. Intermediate transit nodes are configured to simply pass- through the traffic without looking at it. Therefore, for an external attack, a hacker must be able to passively tap into the optical signal (easy to detect), decode the SONET layer to get into the frame containing the Ethernet traffic, and then decode the Ethernet traffic. This is virtually impossible if virtual concatenation is used because packets are broken up and sent across different paths to the destination node. Even if an external hacker could get access to the packets, the hacker would still need to gain access to the provisioning system and redirect traffic by reconfiguring the cross-connects, which would create a series of alarms. In-Band Management Unlike data networks, SONET networks use an in- band channel called the Data Communications Channel (DCC) for management purposes. Although the management traffic is separate from the production traffic, both types of traffic go over the same fiber. Typically, the management traffic from each SONET network element is configured to go through a Gateway Network Element (GNE), where it is handed off via a management Ethernet port. Since the LoopStar products implement IP over the DCC, each node is capable of being reached internally over the corporate network. For this reason, the IP address of each LoopStar product is located behind the IT management firewall for protection from internal and external attacks. 9/05 • 1339239 LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions Private SONET Networks for Enterprise Customers 2 www.adc.com • +1-952-938-8080 • 1-800-366-3891 Secure Access As mentioned above, each LoopStar product has an Ethernet management port; however, generally, only one of the nodes acts as the GNE. The remaining Ethernet ports on the network elements remain unused. To prevent unauthorized access, a hacker must get the user name and password. It is also possible to place the network element inside a locked cabinet at each site. In this case, the system provides alarm contact closures that would alert IT management as soon as someone entered the cabinet. Multi-Network Support The LoopStar 800/1600 can provide an additional level of security that is unavailable to traditional data networking equipment. Using the multi- ADM feature, a single SONET node can support multiple physical networks. This provides enterprise customers with the ability to separate traffic from different departments without having to use data networking technology such as VLANs. Having different networks at the physical layer prevents security issues such as MAC address leakage between VLANs from occurring. Summary With the advances in Ethernet over SONET technology and the ability to deliver traditional T1 services, the LoopStar SONET Access and Transport product family offers an effective means of transport for enterprise and institutional organizations. This is especially applicable in government institutions where the IT department is set up as a cost center and owns the fiber or leases dark fiber in order to provide connectivity services for voice and data to other departments. The LoopStar SONET platform provides cost- effective, scalable, reliable, and secure transmission between buildings or sites within an enterprise or institutional organization. 9/05 • 1339239 LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions Private SONET Networks for Enterprise Customers 3 www.adc.com • +1-952-938-8080 • 1-800-366-3891 ADC Telecommunications, Inc., P.O. Box 1101, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA 55440-1101 Specifications published here are current as of the date of publication of this document. Because we are continuously improving our products, ADC reserves the right to change specifications without prior notice. At any time, you may verify product specifications by contacting our headquarters office in Minneapolis. ADC Telecommunications, Inc. views its patent portfolio as an important corporate asset and vigorously enforces its patents. Products or features contained herein may be covered by one or more U.S. or foreign patents. An Equal Opportunity Employer 1339239 9/05 Original © 2005 ADC Telecommunications, Inc. All Rights Reserved Web Site: www.adc.com From North America, Call Toll Free: 1-800-366-3891 • Outside of North America: +1-952-938-8080 Fax: +1-952-917-3237 • For a listing of ADC’s global sales office locations, please refer to our web site. APPLICATION NOTE . ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions Private SONET Networks for Enterprise Customers Reliability Network Protection For customers who have existing SONET. 1339239 LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions LoopStar ® SONET Access and Transport Solutions Private SONET Networks for Enterprise Customers 2 www.adc.com