Optical Ethernet: making Ethernet carrier class for professional services

The existing overlaid data network architecture deployed by most service providers has shown its shortcomings in supporting professional business services due to its complexity and high cost. This paper introduces a new optical transport technology that is based on Ethernet but integrates all the required features to consolidate multiple layers below the IP layer in the existing architecture into one, thus simplifying the architecture and significantly reducing the cost both in network buildout and in network operations. The paper provides the technical details on how the limitations of traditional Ethernet are overcome and how Ethernet becomes carrier class. It also introduces the new services enabled by carrier-class Ethernet and analyzes the impact of it on Internet evolution.