Apparatus and method for terminating service emulation instances
First Claim
1. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network prior to transmission through a service edge, wherein service emulation communications to and from the access network are aggregated, comprising:
- a service emulation interface for receiving service emulation communications, each of the service emulation communications comprising a service emulation instance payload that may differ in format from service emulation instance payloads of other service emulation communications, and at least one service emulation mapping identifier including at least the identification of the service emulation instance, the service emulation mapping identifiers of the service emulation communication having a uniform format;
a service emulation end point component communicatively coupled to the service emulation interface, the service emulation end point component being configured to convert the service emulation communications to communications conforming to a first transport protocol; and
an interworking function separate from and communicatively coupled to the service emulation end point component configured to convert the communications conforming to a first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol, the first transport protocol being different fro the second transport protocol;
wherein the interworking function sends the communications conforming to the second transport protocol to the service edge.
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Accused Products
Abstract
System and method for providing a termination point for service emulation instances in an access network is provided. In an embodiment, the service emulation instances are implemented utilizing, for example, pseudowires. Communications to and from the access network are aggregated and transmitted via one or more pseudowires to a service emulation instance terminator. The service emulation instance terminator converts the traffic to its native form and, if necessary, converts the traffic to a different type of format or service. The service emulation instance terminator then frames the traffic for the appropriate type of service and transmits the traffic to the service edge. Traffic received from the service is removed prepended with a pseudowire label and aggregated with other traffic. The aggregated traffic is transmitted to the customer via the access network. If necessary, an interworking function may convert the traffic from one type of service to another type of service.
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Citations
84 Claims
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1. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network prior to transmission through a service edge, wherein service emulation communications to and from the access network are aggregated, comprising:
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a service emulation interface for receiving service emulation communications, each of the service emulation communications comprising a service emulation instance payload that may differ in format from service emulation instance payloads of other service emulation communications, and at least one service emulation mapping identifier including at least the identification of the service emulation instance, the service emulation mapping identifiers of the service emulation communication having a uniform format; a service emulation end point component communicatively coupled to the service emulation interface, the service emulation end point component being configured to convert the service emulation communications to communications conforming to a first transport protocol; and an interworking function separate from and communicatively coupled to the service emulation end point component configured to convert the communications conforming to a first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol, the first transport protocol being different fro the second transport protocol;
wherein the interworking function sends the communications conforming to the second transport protocol to the service edge. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications on a custom side of an access network prior to transmission through a service edge, where service emulation communications to and from the access network are aggregated, the apparatus comprising:
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a service emulation interface communicatively coupled to a user of a first transport protocol, the service emulation interface being configured to receive the service emulation communications, wherein the service emulation communications comprise at least one service emulation mapping identifier including at least the identification of a service emulation instance, the service emulation mapping identifiers of the service emulation communications having a uniform format; a service emulation end point component communicatively coupled to the service emulation interface, the service emulation end point component being configured to extract service emulation instance payload from a service emulation communications; and an interworking function, separate from and communicatively coupled to the service emulation end point component, the interworking function being configured to convert the service emulation instance payload conforming to the first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol, wherein the first transport protocol is different from the second transport protocol; and
wherein the interworking function sends the communications conforming to the second transport protocol to the service edge. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications having one or more service emulation instances, on a customer side of an access network prior to transmission through a service edge, wherein the service emulation communications to and from the access network are aggregated, and wherein the service emulation communications comprise at least one service emulation mapping identifier for identifying a service emulation instance, the service emulation mapping identifiers having a uniform format, the apparatus comprising:
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means for terminating a service emulation instance; means for extracting a service emulation instance payload from the service emulation instance, the service emulation instance payload conforming to a first transport protocol; means, separate from the means for extracting, for converging the service emulation communications from the first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol, wherein the first transport protocol is different from the second transport protocol; and means for communicatively coupling to a service edge the means for converting. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications on a customer side of a service edge, wherein the service emulation communications are aggregated, the apparatus comprising:
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an interworking function communicatively coupled to a service edge, the interworking function being configured to convert communications conforming to a first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol, the first transport protocol being different from the second transport protocol; a service emulation end point component communicatively separate from and coupled to the interworking function, the service emulation end point component being configured to encode communications conforming to the second transport protocol into service emulation communications, wherein the service emulation communications comprise at least one service emulation mapping identifier for identifying a service emulation instance and a service emulation instance payload, the service emulation mapping identifiers having a uniform format while the format of the service emulation instance payload may differ; and a service emulation interface communicatively coupled to the service emulation end point component and an access network, the service emulation interface being configure to transmit service emulation communications on a service emulation instance. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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40. An apparatus for processing service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network, wherein the service emulation communications to and from the access network are aggregated, the apparatus comprising:
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a pseudowire terminator communicatively coupled to an access network, the pseudowire terminator being configured to act as one end of a pseudowire to receive communications corresponding to a first transport protocol, the communications comprising a service emulation mapping identifier having a uniform format for identifying a service emulation instance and a service emulation instance payload; a framer communicatively coupled to a service edge and the pseudowire terminator, the framer being configured to insert framing data prior to transmission to the service edge; and an interworking function communicatively coupled to the pseudowire terminator and the framer, the interworking function configured to covert from communications received via the pseudowire terminator conforming to the first transport protocol to communications conforming to a second transport protocol suitable for framing by the framer. - View Dependent Claims (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47)
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48. An apparatus for processing and aggregating service emulation communication on a customer side of an access network, the apparatus comprising:
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a framer communicatively coupled to a service edge, the framer being configured to extract communications conforming to a first transport protocol; a pseudowire terminator communicatively coupled to an access network and the framer, the pseudowire terminator being configured to act as one end of a pseudowire to transmit the communications on an pseudowire, the communications comprising a service emulation mapping identifier having a uniform format for identifying a service emulation instance and a service emulation instance payload; and an interworking function communicatively coupled to the pseudowire terminator and the framer, the interworking function configured to convert from communications received via the framer conforming to the first transport protocol to communication conforming to a second transport protocol suitable for transmission by the pseudowire terminator. - View Dependent Claims (49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55)
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56. A method for processing and aggregating service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network, comprising:
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receiving communications in a first format associated with a first transport protocol;
removing framing information associated with the first transport protocol;converting the communications to a second format corresponding to a second transport protocol;
encoding the communications in the second format to form service emulation communications, wherein the encoding includes prepending at least one service emulation instance mapping identifier for identifying a service emulation instance, wherein the service emulation instance mapping identifiers are of uniform format regardless of the format of the communication to which it is prepended; andtransmitting the service emulation communications over a service emulation instance. - View Dependent Claims (57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64)
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65. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer program codes, which when executed, perform processing and aggregating of service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network prior to transmission through a service edge, the computer program comprising:
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computer program code for receiving service emulation communications on a service emulation instance from a customer via an access network, an decapsulating the service emulation communications by removing at least one service emulation instance mapping identifier identifying the service emulation instance, wherein the service emulation instance mapping identifiers are of uniform format regardless of the format of the communication to which it is attached, the service emulation communications comprising a service emulation payload corresponding to a first transport protocol; computer program code for converting the service emulation instance payload to a second format corresponding to a second transport protocol, the first transport protocol being different from the second transport protocol; and computer program code for transmitting the service emulation instance payload in the second format to the service edge on a communications link corresponding to the second transport protocol. - View Dependent Claims (66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75)
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76. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer program codes, which when executed, perform processing and aggregation of service emulation communications on a customer side of an access network, the computer program comprising:
- computer program code for receiving communications in a first format associated with a first transport protocol;
computer program code for removing framing information associated with the first transport protocol;
computer program code for converting the communications to a second format corresponding to a second transport protocol;
computer program code for encoding the communications in the second format to form service emulation communications, the encoding including prepending at least one service emulation instance mapping identifier for identifying a service emulation instance, wherein the service emulation instance mapping identifiers are of uniform format regardless of the format of the communication to which it is prepended; and
computer program code for transmitting the service emulation communications over a service emulation instance. - View Dependent Claims (77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84)
- computer program code for receiving communications in a first format associated with a first transport protocol;
Specification