what is SDH Transport?

• SDH was initially optimized for voice transport
• The huge demand of bandwidth for data and storage networks created new requirements
• Transport of Ethernet, Fibre Channel and Escon More efficient use of bandwidth for new services (finer granularity):

Example: A Gigabit Ethernet consumes a full STM-16 (i.e. 2.4 Gbps),
resulting in a 42% utilization

The answers

• Virtual Concatenation (VC): Allows the bandwidth to be adapted to the service requirements
• Link Capacity Access Scheme (LCAS): A signalling protocol to adjust the transport bandwidth dynamically
• Generic Framing Procedure (GFP): Adapts a frame or cell oriented service to a byte stream service.