Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme or LCAS is a method to dynamically increase or decrease the bandwidth

Bandwidth (computing)

In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...

 of virtual concatenated

Virtual concatenation

Virtual concatenation is an inverse multiplexing technique creating a large capacity payload container distributed over multiple smaller capacity TDM signals. These signals may be transported or routed independently...

 containers. The LCAS protocol

Communications protocol

A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...

 is specified in ITU-T

ITU-T

The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union ; it coordinates standards for telecommunications....

G.7042.

It allows on-demand increase or decrease of the bandwidth of the virtual concatenated group in a hitless manner. This brings bandwidth-on-demand capability for data clients like Ethernet when mapped into TDM containers.

LCAS is also able to temporarily remove failed members from the virtual concatenation group. A failed member will automatically cause a decrease of the bandwidth and after repair the bandwidth will increase again in a hitless fashion. Together with diverse routing this provides survivability of data traffic without requiring excess protection bandwidth allocation.

External links

• Benefits and Implementation of Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS) in Ethernet over SONET/SDH Networking