
John Vollbrecht wrote:
For example, and OTN port might convert things to SONET, Ethernet, and other line protocols. Is this adaptation?
Yes, if "things" is a higher layer than SONET or Ethernet.
I think that I understand what you are saying - that a link has a single stream on it and that single stream can be adapted to some other layer. However, in multiplexed networks like DCN a link can carry many streams and each stream can be adapted differently. In fact, in an ete circuit there may be several links and each link may do a different adaptation. How does the topology describe something like this?
Good question. If we talk about a "link" we actually mean a logical link, or a channel (G.805 talks about "a transport entity across a link"). Thus a fiber with different wavelenghts would be described as a link at the fiber layer, and multiple links at the WDM layer. Either only the fiber link is in the database, and the other links are "derived" from the combination of adaptation, link and de-adaptation, or they are all present in the database. The relation between these links would be an adaptation relation between the ports on each layer. In this particular case, the relation would be a multiplexing adaptation function, which is an adaptation with multiple channels on the higher layer and one on the lower layer. Each port on the WDM layer has a "client" relation with the adaptation instance. The (single) port on the fiber layer has a "server" relation with the adaptation instance. It is possible that the WDM layer ports could in turn have "server" relation with other adaptation instance, each different. Perhaps wavelength 1 carries multiple STS timeslots, while wavelength carriers Ethernet. Let me know if you like me express this example in instances of classes in the current NML schema. Regards, Freek