Efficient Ethernet Ring Mesh Network Design

Ethernet ring protection (ERP) is an emerging solution for carrier-grade optical Ethernet networking developed as an ITU-T recommendation. The most recent development of the ERP technique provides multi-ring protection in a mesh packet transport network. The ERP configuration and capacity planning in a ring mesh topology can be optimized in the selection of the interconnected ring hierarchy and logical loop prevention block positions. This paper reports the first investigation to understand the designing principles of protected Ethernet ring mesh networks and proposes an optimized design scheme for cost-effective and reliable ERP networking.