BROADCAST DESIGN FOR PROVISIONING RECONFIGURABLE OPTICAL ADD/DROP MULTIPLEXER CIRCUITS

• US 20090327901A1
• Filed: 06/25/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ciena Corporation
• Original Assignee: Verizon Data Services LLC (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: SUBRAMANIAN, Sengodan, KAPADIA, Lakshmi Prasanna, LOPEZ, David, DINGARI, Hrushikesh, KHAROD, Manish
• Granted Patent: US 8,452,861 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/735
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0212 using optical switches or wavelength selective switches [WSS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0217 Multi-degree architectures, e.g. having a connection degree greater than two
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0227 Operation, administration, maintenance or provisioning [OAMP] of WDM networks, e.g. media access, routing or wavelength allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0232 for downstream transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0284 WDM mesh architectures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 11/0062 Network aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2011/0073 Provisions for forwarding or routing, e.g. lookup tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2011/0079 Operation or maintenance aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2011/0086 Network resource allocation, dimensioning or optimisation

Abstract

A method includes receiving an order for services to be provided by an optical network, the order identifying bandwidth requirements for the optical network and multiple broadcast locations; creating an optical network identifier, the optical network identifier including an aggregation of dense wavelength data multiplexers that may define one or more paths; prompting a user to select a path for a broadcast circuit through the dense wavelength data multiplexers using a graphical user interface; querying an operations support service for available bandwidth to support bandwidth requirements over the selected path; and assigning the circuit path based on the available bandwidth.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an order for services to be provided by an optical network, the order identifying bandwidth requirements for the optical network and multiple broadcast locations;

creating an optical network identifier, the optical network identifier including an aggregation of dense wavelength data multiplexers that may define one or more paths;

prompting a user to select a path for a broadcast circuit through the dense wavelength data multiplexers using a graphical user interface;

querying an operations support service for available bandwidth to support bandwidth requirements over the selected path; and

assigning the circuit path based on the available bandwidth.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

requesting the operations support service to reserve bandwidth for the assigned circuit; and

designing a circuit layout record based on the assigned circuit path.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically sending the circuit layout record to a support office for implementation.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a request to a network management server to activate the broadcast circuit.

5. The method of claim 1, where prompting a user to select a path for the broadcast circuit further comprises:

prompting a user to select, from a list of available wavelength intervals, a particular wavelength interval for the broadcast circuit;

prompting the user to provide a deadline for completion of the broadcast circuit;

prompting the user to provide one or more west paths from source nodes to destination nodes;

prompting the user to provide one or more east paths from source nodes to destination nodes;

automatically selecting all servicing nodes in the selected west and east paths; and

prompting the user to select the degrees of propagation for each node in the selected west and east paths.

6. The method of claim 5, where the servicing nodes are video servicing offices (VSO) and the source nodes are video hub office (VHO) nodes, and where prompting the user to select the degrees of propagation for each node comprises:

prompting the user to select for each VHO which reconfigurability class marketing modules (RCMM) to which the signal has to be added at each VHO;

prompting the user to select for each interconnecting node which RCMMs should continue, the broadcast degrees and ports; and

prompting the user to select for each VSO either degrees to drop or RCMMs to pass through.

7. A system comprising:

an interface with a workflow management server to request and receive information regarding use of at least one or more of equipment or human resources;

an interface with an inventory management server to request and receive information regarding network component inventory and information regarding the physical topology of a network region;

an interface with a network management server to initiate activation of network services;

a graphical user interface; and

processing logic to;

create an optical network identifier based on the information regarding the physical topology of a network region,

prompt a user, based on information from the inventory management server, to select circuit paths for a circuit using the graphical user interface,

design a circuit layout record based on the information from the workflow management server, the inventory management server, and the user input, and

send a request to the network management server to activate the broadcast circuit.

8. The system of claim 7, where the processing logic is further configured to:

send a request to the network management server to activate the circuit.

9. The system of claim 7, where the processing logic to prompt a user to select circuit paths comprises:

prompting a user to select, from a list of available wavelength intervals, a particular wavelength interval for the circuit;

prompting the user to provide a deadline for completion of the broadcast circuit;

prompting the user to provide one or more west paths from source nodes to destination nodes;

prompting the user to provide one or more east paths from source nodes to destination nodes;

automatically selecting all servicing nodes in the selected west and east paths; and

prompting the user to select the degrees of propagation for each node in the selected west and east paths.

10. The system of claim 9, where the servicing nodes are video servicing offices (VSO) and the source nodes are video hub office (VHO) nodes, and where prompting the user to select the degrees of propagation for each node comprises:

prompting the user to select for each VHO which reconfigurability class marketing modules (RCMM) to which the signal has to be added at each VHO;

prompting the user to select for each interconnecting node which RCMMs should continue, the broadcast degrees and ports; and

prompting the user to select for each VSO either degrees to drop or RCMMs to pass through.

11. A device to provide a graphical user interface for building a broadcast circuit, the graphical user interface comprising:

a first screen area to provide a graphical layout of one or more portions of an optical network identifier, the graphical layout presenting node indicators and connecting paths associated with the optical network identifier, and

a second screen area to provide a graphical toolbar with node functions, where the second screen area is configured to allow a user to assign a node function to at least one of the node indicators by selecting a node indicator from the graphical layout and a node function from the graphical toolbar.

12. The device of claim 11, where the graphical layout is pre-populated for the user based on physical topology information

13. The device of claim 11, where each node indicator includes detailed information about the corresponding node within the graphical layout.

14. The device of claim 13, where detailed information includes at least one of a telecommunications identification number for the node, a node number, a service cluster identification or a fiber network identification.

15. The device of claim 11, where the graphical user interface further comprises a third screen area to provide detailed information about a particular node selected from the graphical layout.

16. The device of claim 11, where the node indicators are color-coded according to an assigned node function.

17. A computer-readable memory comprising computer-executable instructions, the computer-readable memory comprising:

one or more instructions for retrieving a network topology for at least a portion of an optical network;

one or more instructions for creating on optical network identifier for a broadcast circuit based on the network topology;

one or more instructions for presenting a graphical user interface of the optical network identifier, the graphical user interface identifying individual nodes and connections between the nodes;

one or more instructions for accepting user input to define functions for one or more nodes over a circuit path; and

one or more instructions for creating a circuit layout record based on the optical network identifier and the user input.

18. The computer-readable memory of claim 17, further comprising:

one or more instructions for querying an operations support service for available bandwidth to support bandwidth requirements over the circuit path.

19. A graphical user interface for provisioning a broadcast circuit on an optical network, the graphical user interface comprising:

a first screen area to provide a graphical layout of one or more portions of an optical network identifier, the graphical layout presenting node indicators and connecting paths within the optical network identifier,

a second screen area to provide a graphical toolbar with node functions, where the second screen area is configured to allow a user to assign a node function to at least one of the node indicators by selecting a node indicator from the graphical layout and a node function from the graphical toolbar; and

a third screen area to provide circuit details for a selected node indicator, the circuit details including an area for the user to input cross-connect functions for each degree of a selected node.

20. A system comprising:

means for receiving an order for services through an optical network, the order identifying bandwidth requirements for the optical network and broadcast requirements;

means for creating an optical network identifier, the optical network identifier including an aggregation of dense wavelength data multiplexers that define one or more paths;

means for prompting a user to input a path for a broadcast circuit through the dense wavelength data multiplexers using a graphical user interface; and

means for creating a circuit layout record based on the user input and the optical network identifier.