Performance of lifetest using CMTS as a proxy
First Claim
1. A cable network, comprising:
- a data switching system in communication with a plurality of network elements, said data switching system being adapted to issue ranging requests to said network elements from time to time, determine transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests, and to store responses to the ranging requests in a database; and
a management system for managing network elements on the cable network, said management system being adapted to obtain network element status information from said database,wherein status information indicating a status of said network elements is determined based on the responses by a network element to the ranging request.
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Abstract
A system and method for performing Lifetest over a cable network system is provided which minimizes bandwidth usage by the Lifetest procedure while increasing the number of devices that the EMS may support. In accordance with the system and method, the EMS obtains device state information from the CMTS. Since the CMTS is constantly ranging its device population for state information, and since this information is stored in the DOCSIS Radio Frequency MIB, the EMS may obtain device state information by going to the MIB instead of directly to the device. This approach utilizes the distributed process inherently built into the system by taking advantage of the ranging that is already being performed by the CMTS. Since the EMS does not have to interact with every device in the system while performing Lifetest, consumption of bandwidth and processing resources is minimized.
52 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A cable network, comprising:
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a data switching system in communication with a plurality of network elements, said data switching system being adapted to issue ranging requests to said network elements from time to time, determine transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests, and to store responses to the ranging requests in a database; and a management system for managing network elements on the cable network, said management system being adapted to obtain network element status information from said database, wherein status information indicating a status of said network elements is determined based on the responses by a network element to the ranging request. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A cable network, comprising:
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a cable modem termination system in communication with a plurality of network elements selected from the group consisting of cable modems, broadband telephony interfaces, and multimedia terminal adaptors, said cable modem termination system being adapted to issue ranging requests to said network elements from time to time and determine transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests, and to store responses to the ranging requests in at least one file; and an element management system in communication with said cable modem termination system, said element management system being adapted to obtain status information about said network elements from said at least one file, wherein status information indicating a status of said network elements is determined based on the responses by a network element to the ranging request. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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17. A method for obtaining status information on network elements in a cable network, comprising the steps of:
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providing a cable network comprising a data switching system in communication with a plurality of network elements; providing a management system for managing the network elements on the cable network, the management system being in comniunication with the database; providing a ranging request signal from the data switching system to each of the network elements of the plurality of network elements, and determining transmission time delays associated with each of said network elements based on responses to the ranging requests; determining status information for each of the plurality of network elements based on a response from each of the plurality of network elements to the ranging request signal, respectively; storing this status information in a database; and accessing the status information from the database by way of said management system. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification