06 July - 10 July 2009 (Mon - Fri)
5 day instructor-led training, 0900-1700
Accra, Ghana

This tutorial course provides a thorough overview on several topics that are usually not presented in a single book neither in any competing course on PDH and SDH. To summarize, the main objectives of this course are the following:

• to explain fundamentals and basic concepts, which are necessary to interact advisedly with SDH designers, expert market managers or network planners, or to understand fully the technical documentation of SDH systems;
• to clarify the passage from PDH to SDH, highlighting advantages and drawbacks;
• to detail operation principles of PDH and SDH, also by way of practical examples;
• to present functions of various types of SDH equipment (regenerators, terminal and add-drop multiplexers, digital cross-connects), by way of their system-level description, accompanied by several network application examples;
• to illustrate examples of network applications and traffic protection;
• to survey other aspects, which are particularly relevant to the design and operation of SDH transmission networks, such as data transport over SDH, SDH network synchronization, management and testing.

Beginning with the `70s, the Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH) has been introduced and widely used in telephone networks, according to international standards defined by the International Telecommunications Union - Telecommunications sector (ITU-T). The PDH standard defines a hierarchy of digital signals, based on asynchronous digital multiplexing. In the European version, standard bit rates are 2.048 Mbit/s, 8.448 Mbit/s, 34.368 Mbit/s, 139.264 Mbit/s and 564.992 Mbit/s.

In late `80s, the ITU-T defined the new digital transmission standard named Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), based on the USA standard Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET). Standard bit rates of SDH are 155.520 Mbit/s, 622.080 Mbit/s, 2.488320 Gbit/s, 9.953280 Gbit/s and above. SDH was designed using multiplexing and justification techniques that are rather complex, but flexible, to allow synchronous multiplexing of plesiochronous tributaries.

The SDH technique features numerous accessory functions and advantages, beginning with its very high transmission capacity. Today, SDH has replaced most PDH systems, except in some radio relay systems. High capacity SDH backbone networks are the transmission infrastructure not only of legacy telephone networks, but also of packet-switched broadband networks (ATM, IP). Newer developments of SDH, namely Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) and Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS), further enhance its flexibility and capabilities, and make it the transmission technology of choice also for high-speed data transport networks.

This course comes up from the long-date teaching and working experience of the instructor in this field, both in industry and in academia. It presents a comprehensive and systematic treatise of many aspects of the SDH technique, from most general to very specific ones.

Since several years, this course has been given in numerous editions at premises of many leading companies, including equipment manufacturers and telecommunications operators. The varied audience included system engineers, network planners, hardware and software designers, engineers in charge of system testing, operation, maintenance and customer support, and even marketing and product managers. In the last ten years, the number of persons that attended this course may be estimated well above one thousand!

This course has been designed to start off personnel, with different work experiences, to master quickly all main aspects of SDH. It has been structured to satisfy the expectations of both those with only general knowledge of telecommunications and those who already have some experience of SDH, either theoretical or practical on field.

In particular, the participants will learn:

• principles of traditional FDM and PCM multiplexing of telephone channels;
• basics of optical multiplexing systems (WDM, OTDM);
• the bit justification techniques used in PDH multiplexing;
• the SDH frame structure, overhead and multiplexing schemes;
• the SDH pointer justification mechanism;
• VCAT and LCAS;
• BIP codes for bit error monitoring over SDH transmission lines;
• principles of data transport over SDH (ATM, IP, GFP, Ethernet);
• basic functions of SDH equipment (regenerators, multiplexers, digital cross-connects), including such specific aspects as scrambling, physical interfaces, alarming;
• techniques of traffic protection in SDH networks;
• basics of SDH network synchronization;
• basics of SDH network management;
• techniques and practical procedures for SDH system testing.

For best understanding of course topics, basic knowledge of digital telecommunications (telephone systems, PCM, multiplexing) is recommended.

This course has been designed primarily for the technical personnel of telecommunications operators, service providers and equipment suppliers. This may include, but not exclusively, PDH/SDH system engineers, network planners, hardware and software designers, engineers in charge of system testing, operation, maintenance and customer support. It is well suited also for marketing and product managers, who need an overview on all aspects of this technology for promoting products effectively.

Not only practitioners or new-to-the job should attend this course, but also senior personnel with expertise in the field will discover several enlightening aspects and will benefit from attending it.

The richness and depth of course topics cover a wide spectrum of practical and theoretical issues. According to the audience background and previous expertise, the course may be tailored to beginners (entry level) or to experts (advanced level).

Introduction

Multiplexing

• frequency division multiplexing (FDM) and FDM hierarchy
• analog/digital conversion
• time division multiplexing (TDM)
  • PCM telephone multiplex
  • synchronous digital multiplexing
• optical multiplexing (WDM, OTDM)

PDH transmission systems

• asynchronous digital multiplexing
• bit justification
• frame structure
• PDH multiplexing hierarchy
• PDH equipment
• drawbacks

SDH transmission systems

• historical outline
• ITU-T standards
• advantages compared to PDH
• SDH e SONET hierarchical levels

SDH frame structure

• ETSI and ITU-T multiplexing schemes
• multiplexing elements
• examples of synchronous multiplexing
• pointer justification
• concatenation
• overhead
• SDH frame for radio systems
• BIP-n codes: bit error rate estimation

Data transport over SDH

• overview
• ATM over SDH
  • ATM basics
  • ITU-T protocol reference model
  • Physical Layer
  • ATM mapping in SDH VCs
• IP over SDH (Packet over SDH)
  • motivation
  • protocol stack
  • beyond STM-16
• Generic Framing Procedure (GFP)
  • overview
  • frame structure
  • client-independent processes
  • client-specific processes: mapping modes
  • GFP mapping in SDH VCs
• Virtual Concatenation and LCAS
• Ethernet over SDH

SDH equipment

• functional schemes
• scrambling
• alarms and alarm states
• physical interfaces and line systems
• regenerators
• Line Terminal Multiplexers, Add Drop Multiplexers (ADM) and application examples
• Digital Cross Connect (DXC) and application examples
• radio relay equipment and application examples

SDH network architectures

• overview
• traffic protection: line protection, ring protection, restoration in DXC networks
• applications

Synchronization aspects in SDH networks

• synchronization in telecommunications
• timing relationships among digital signals
• synchronous and asynchronous transport modes
• jitter and wander
• causes of jitter and wander in SDH transmission systems
• network synchronization
• models and characterization of clocks

Testing of SDH equipment and systems

• instrumentation
• testing of SDH equipment
• testing of SDH systems

Basics of SDH network management

• general model of Telecommunication Management Network (TMN)
• TMN functional architecture
• TMN physical architecture
• information model
• SDH network management