On the design of Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) for resilient packet ring

Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) is a new MAC protocol within metropolitan area network, and Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) function can improve network reliability, simplify network operation and reduce network operating costs. This paper discusses that by sending and receiving OAM control frames OAM function can be implemented in the RPR network. It puts forwards a new hybrid performance management scheme for monitoring the performance on the ring. First an OAM frame is transmitted through the whole ring periodically. If the degradation has happened, the source station can choose serial checking, parallel checking or parallel checking with multicast method to locate the site of the degradation, and consequently QoS is guaranteed. The results of simulations show how to balance bandwidth utilization and station overhead with different methods.