Technical Note

Teknovus EPON DBA

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Introduction

This document describes scheduling, shaping, and

DBA (Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation) in the
TK3721 TK3701 EPON system. The Teknovus
EPON DBA is designed for fairness and efficiency.
It allows network operators to provision SLAs
(Service Level Agreements) on a per LLID
(Logical Link ID) basis. Each SLA specifies the
following four parameters:
Minimum Guaranteed Bandwidth
Maximum Allowable Bandwidth
Burst Size
Delay Tolerance
The DBA is responsible for ensuring the Minimum
Guaranteed Bandwidth is met for each SLA, and
that the delay tolerance characteristics are met.
The TK3721 TK3701 system also implements
traffic shaping, which ensures that the Maximum
Allowable Bandwidth and Burst Size are not
exceeded on a per SLA basis. The Host System
(implemented by the system vendor) software is
responsible for ensuring that the sum of the
Minimum Guaranteed Bandwidth of the SLAs does
not exceed the actual link capacity. This system
allows multiple services such as voice, video, and
data to coexist on the system and share the network
resources efficiently.

1.1

Downstream

The OLT bridges a Gigabit Ethernet Network link

to a Gigabit Ethernet PON, and its downstream
traffic may have small oversubscription due to
additional MPCP and OAM overhead on the EPON
side. To handle the possibility of oversubscription
downstream, the TK3721 performs scheduling and
shaping of downstream traffic on a per-LLID basis.
Shaping and scheduling in the downstream enforce
this service contract defined by the SLA.

1.2

Upstream

Each ONU has two 10/100 user ports which send

ingress traffic to the upstream. As such, a single
LLID should not exceed 100 Mbps for a
sustainable period. In the upstream direction, there
is potential for oversubscription with many (up to
64) 10/100 user ports with potential aggregate
capacity of 6.4 Gbps contenting for aggregate
upstream link capacity of 1 Gbps. The TK3721
implements upstream bandwidth allocation using a
DBA scheduling algorithm in the TK3721. This
scheduling system then sends bandwidth grants to
the ONUs using GATE messages.
Figure 1 shows the Upstream capacity shared by
two subscribers.

Figure 1. EPON DBA for allocating upstream traffic

The DBA is designed to:
Predictably distribute upstream bandwidth
Provide a fast response time
Allow for high burst rate
High utilization of the upstream
Support zero loss upstream bandwidth control

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Packet classification and queuing

Classification is performed at each ingress point.

On the downstream, the OLT classifies each
packet using the downstream Lookup Engine.
On the upstream, the ONU classifies each packet
using the Ethernet Lookup Engine.
On downstream traffic, the OLT places each
frame into one of the 256 queues, each queue
corresponding to an LLID. The downstream
scheduler/shaper controls the transmission of
frames from these queues to meet each SLA.

On upstream traffic, the ONU places each frame

into one of 8 queues. Queue #0 is reserved for
control OAM and MPCP frames. Each queue
(except queue #0) corresponds to an LLID.
There are a maximum of 4 LLIDs per ONU, so it
is possible for multiple queues to correspond to a
single LLID. Lower number queues have strict
priority over higher number queues.

Figure 2. Packet classification and queueing.

802.1Q, DiffServ(TOS), Layer 2/3 Address, or

Layer 4 ports can be used to map traffic into
Link Layer IDs and/or service level agreements.

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Traffic Management

The Teknovus EPON chipset provides packet

queuing at four locations:
Downstream OLT
Downstream ONU
Upstream ONU
Upstream OLT

These queuing points are shown in the following

figure.

Figure 3. Traffic management.

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Upstream Shaping and Scheduling

Shaping and scheduling is implemented on a perLLID basis. The shaping function runs in
parallel with the scheduler. The shaper counts
the number of bytes transmitted, compares with
the SLA provisioned values, and halts
transmission when a queue exceeds the allocated
amount. The shaper sends a halt signal to the
scheduler on a per-queue basis. In summary, the
scheduler guarantees the minimum bandwidth
per SLA, while the shaper guarantees the
maximum bandwidth and burst size are not
exceeded.

pause transmission. The shaper measures the

traffic, and calculates the pause such that the
service contract is adhered to. The effect of this
is that the queues begin to fill, and a pause frame
is sent to the user port. This mechanism is
designed such that there are no loss of packets.
Link efficiency is optimized using zero-loss
upstream bandwidth and multi-threshold
reporting. The following figure shows this
backpressure mechanism.

When traffic on a given LLID has exceeded the

service contract, the LLID must temporarily

Figure 4. Upstream Shaping and Scheduling.

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3.2 DBA Architecture

The TK3721 DBA Scheduler generates Gate
messages to the ONUs. The DBA uses queue
length status received from ONU Report
messages, along with the SLA parameters, to
calculate bandwidth allocation.

The scheduler is implemented using Hierarchal

Weighted Round Robin, providing fair queueing.
There are up to8 levels of hierarchy supported by
TK3721-TK3701 hardware.

Figure 5. Upstream DBA Architecture.

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3.3 Shaping/scheduling algorithms

Shaping/scheduling is implemented in hardware
on both upstream and downstream traffic to
ensure fairness in bandwidth allocation. The
shapers limit data transmission in increments of
256 Kbps up to 1 Gbps, using burst sizes of 1
Kbytes to 256 Kbytes in increments of 1 Kbytes.

The shaping/scheduling is implemented using

Hierarchal Weighted Round Robin, as shown in
the following figure.

Figure 6. Hierarchal Weighted Round Robin Scheduling Algorithm.

In this example configuration, all queues with
priority 1 are allowed to transfer if permitted by
the shaper. In this example, LLIDs 10-12 each
are guaranteed to transfer 20 K Bytes per
scheduling cycle on priority 1.

priority 3. At any time, this process can be cut

off by the higher priority expiration, and control
returned to priority 1. If this occurs, the nextlowest priority is resumed where it left off the
next time the higher priority drops down.

After all priority 1 queues have been serviced,

the priority 2 LLIDs are serviced. In priority 2,
there is drop down weight is passed to priority 3.
At this point, priority 2 queues are serviced, then
the priority 2 drop down weight is passed to

System vendors have flexibility to create unique

scheduling characteristics by configuring the
number of priority levels and the values for
number of tokens at each priority level.

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Appendix A: Report format

The following table shows the format of a report message from ONU to OLT reporting the queue status at
the ONU.
Field
Octets
DA
6
SA
6
Len/Type
2
Opcode
2
Timestamp
4
Number of queue sets
1
Report Bitmap
1
Q#0 Report
2
Q#1 Report
2
Q#2 Report
2
Q#3 Report
2
Q#4 Report
2
Q#5 Report
2
Q#6 Report
2
Q#7 Report
2
Pad/Reserved
0-39
FCS
4
Table 1: Report MPCPDU format.
Number of queue sets = 1 or 4
Report bitmap = 1
The number of queue sets indicates if the ONU
is reporting a single threshold, or four thresholds
(multi-threshold). Multi-threshold mode allows
each LLID to report multiple frame boundaries
in its queue, which allows the DBA to allocate
bandwidth more efficiently.
The report bitmap = 1 indicates that the ONU is
reporting for one queue only. If there are
multiple queues associated with a single LLID,
the TK3701 adds the value of these queues and
reports as a single queue value. A single queue
report value can have up to four thresholds
reported when using multi-threshold mode.

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Appendix B: Example SLA

The following table shows an example of
upstream Service Level Agreements. In this
example, three LLIDs are used to separate the
traffic into three separate flows. The Teknovus
EPON system supports up to four full-duplex
Physical Port
8051
Ethernet #1
Ethernet #1
Ethernet #2
Ethernet #2

Traffic Type
OAM/MPCP
TCP
RTP VoIP
RTP VoIP
TCP

Queue#
0
3
4
7
8

LLID#
N/A
LLID#1
LLID#2
LLID#3
LLID#3

LLIDs per ONU, plus an additional four oneway LLIDs (downstream only) for multicast and
broadcast traffic.

SLA (min, max, delay)

256 Kbps, 256 Kbps, low
10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, med
256 Kbps, 256 Kbps, low
10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, low
10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, low

Table 2. Example of Upstream Service Level Agreements.

In this example, the frames generated by the
8051 processor are placed in Queue #0. This
queue receives a dedicated service guarantee of
256 Kbps, with low delay.
TCP frames received on E1 (Ethernet #1) are
placed in Q3, with LLID#1. Because there is
only one queue associated with LLID#1, and
because traffic is scheduled and shaped for each
LLID, this E1 TCP traffic receives a guaranteed
SLA.
RTP VoIP frames received on E1 are placed in
Q4. In this example, Q4 is associated with a
unique LLID, and hence this traffic receives a
guaranteed SLA.

RTP VoIP frames received on E2 are placed in

Q7. This time, both Q7 and Q8 share LLID#3.
Because lower number queues have strict
priority, the RTP VoIP traffic from E2 will
always be sent ahead of TCP traffic from E2.
System vendors can use this option if they can
trust the source of traffic not to exceed a certain
amount. For example, if a VoIP handset is
connected, the maximum amount of traffic
generated is limited. With a service contract of
10 Mbps minimum, there would always be
plenty of bandwidth left for the E2 TCP traffic in
Q8. In this case, TCP and VoIP share a single
LLID, but have separate queues at the ONU.

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