Automated network connection tracing and data gathering methods in the SDH network

Automatically tracing a network connection and gathering network configuration data in an SDH network are necessary for future advanced network operation. This paper proposes two methods for these. They are achieved by using the OH bytes that are provided in an SDH frame for OAM applications. It first explains the mechanism of the methods and how to solve practical implementation problems. Then, quantitative analyses show that these methods take less than ten seconds to gather the network configuration data of a path going through one thousand modules in a network. It is also shown that the equipment can be realized with practical amount of hardware based on the functional block diagrams. Finally, an appropriate application area for each method is discussed from the viewpoint of required processing in an operations system and fault localization capability