EXFO IQS-8100 Series Transport Blazer for IQS-600 - Manual (Page 686)

Glossary
672 IQS-8100 Series Transport Blazer
Next-Gen - Virtual Concatenation (VCAT)
VCAT Summary
In short, virtual concatenation provides a means of creating “right-sized”
SONET/SDH containers that better match the bandwidth requirements of
data client signals such as Ethernet and Fibre Channel. In addition, the
flexible nature of VCAT allows service providers to create these right-sized
pipes from the unused bandwidth/timeslots present in their network.
All the intelligence needed to create and handle a virtual concatenation is
located at the end points of the connections (i.e., at the PTEs). The
receiving end-point PTE is responsible for reassembling the original byte
stream. This allows SONET/SDH channels to be routed independently
through the network without requiring any acknowledgement of the virtual
concatenation. In this manner, virtually concatenated channels may be
deployed on the existing SONET/SDH network with a simple end-point
upgrade.