ENHANCED PERFORMANCE MONITORING ARCHITECTURE FOR SYNCHRONOUS DIGITAL HIERARCHY NETWORKS

Existing high-speed network performance monitoring and measurement dev ices lack the flexibility to accommodate a comprehensive set of rapidl y changing network conditions that require real-time information to en sure network integrity and synchronisation. This paper presents a new enhanced performance measurement/monitoring architecture (EPMA) that p rovides flexible, centralised, and distributed real-time information m onitoring, analysis, and interpretation to support synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) network management. The paper documents the use of ex isting SDH interfaces, test tools, and network analysis devices to sup port EPMA, and presents ideas for modifying existing SDH network equip ment to provide EPMA functionality. Also presented are results of a fe asibility demonstration of the basic EPMA functions using both existin g and EPMA-customised SDH equipment on a model SDH network. These resu lts demonstrate the utility of the EPMA.