Method and apparatus for verifying service provisioning in networks used to provide digital subscriber line services

• US 20080101401A1
• Filed: 10/25/2006
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Alcatel SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Absillis, Luc, Storry, Charles Michael
• Granted Patent: US 7,733,790 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/463
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2867 Physical combinations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2881 IP/Ethernet DSLAM
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/289 Single service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2896 Distributed processing, e.g. on line cards
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0869 Validating the configuration within one network element
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements

Abstract

A method and apparatus to permit testing of Layer 2 and higher services provisioned for a port on a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) line card. Each line card is provisioned with a virtual port, a virtual port cross-connect function, and a virtual port tunneling function. The virtual port can be linked to any physical port on the line card. A test host can link to the virtual port from anywhere in a network to perform verification of end-to-end service provisioning and functionality throughout a network.

Claims

1. A line card for a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), comprising:

a plurality of physical ports, each physical port supporting a connection to a digital subscriber line; and

a virtual port that appears to an administrator workstation as a test port on the line card, the virtual port being configured to permit a test host to link to subscriber services provisioned for a physical port to be tested on the line card, to permit Layer 2 and above testing of those subscriber services.

2. The line card as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual port is configured to transparently forward all traffic addressed to the physical port.

3. The line card as claimed in claim 2 further comprising:

a virtual cross-connect function that forwards all traffic addressed to the physical port from interworking feature processing to the virtual port, and forwards all traffic from the virtual port to the interworking feature processing; and

a virtual port tunneling function that encapsulates all traffic sent from the virtual port to a test host and de-encapsulates all traffic sent from the test host to the virtual port.

4. The line card as claimed in claim 3 wherein the virtual port cross-connect function is configured to operate at the Ethernet layer prior to line aggregation which combines multiple independent digital subscriber line (DSL) lines into a single logical channel (bonding) or segmentation and reassembling (SARing).

5. The line card as claimed in claim 3 wherein the virtual port tunneling function comprises a dedicated virtual local area network (VLAN).

6. The line card as claimed in claim 3 wherein the virtual port tunneling function comprises one of:

an extra Ethernet header;

IP-in-IP tunneling;

multi-protocol label switching (MPLS);

or VLAN stacking to ensure that an exact customer traffic flow is evaluated.

7. The line card as claimed in claim 6 wherein the VLAN stacking comprises Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).

9. The DSLAM as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual port is configured to transparently forward all traffic addressed to the physical port.

10. The DSLAM as claimed in claim 9 wherein the line card further comprises:

a virtual cross-connect function that forwards all traffic addressed to the physical port from interworking feature processing to the virtual port, and forwards all traffic from the virtual port to the interworking feature processing; and

a virtual port tunneling function that encapsulates all traffic sent from the virtual port to the test host and de-encapsulates all traffic sent from the test host to the virtual port.

11. The DSLAM card as claimed in claim 10 wherein the virtual port cross-connect function is configured to operate at the Ethernet layer prior to line aggregation which combines multiple independent digital subscriber line (DSL) lines into a single logical channel (bonding) or segmentation and reassembling (SARing).

12. The DSLAM as claimed in claim 10 wherein the virtual port tunneling function comprises a dedicated virtual local area network (VLAN).

13. The DSLAM as claimed in claim 10 wherein the virtual port tunneling function comprises one of:

an extra Ethernet header;

IP-in-IP tunneling;

multi-protocol label switching (MPLS);

or VLAN stacking to ensure that an exact customer traffic flow is evaluated.

14. The DSLAM as claimed in claim 6 wherein the VLAN stacking comprises Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).

8. A digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), comprising a plurality of line cards, each of the line cards comprising a plurality of physical ports, each physical port supporting a connection to a digital subscriber line, and a virtual port that appears to an administrator workstation to be an test port on the line card, the virtual port being configured to permit a test host to link to subscriber services provisioned for any physical port to be tested on the line card, to permit Layer 2 and above testing of the subscriber services provisioned for that physical port.

15. A method of verifying end-to-end service provisioning and functionality throughout a network used to provide digital subscriber line service to a service subscriber connected to a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), comprising:

configuring a virtual port on the line card to link to the provisioned subscriber services;

selecting a test host protocol stack to match a protocol stack of customer premises equipment used by the subscriber;

logically connecting to the virtual port using the test host; and

operating the test host to verify the provisioned subscriber services.

16. The method as claimed in claim 15 wherein operating the test host to test the provisioned subscriber services comprises verifying subscriber authentication.

17. The method as claimed in claim 15 wherein operating the test host to test the provisioned subscriber services comprises testing Internet Protocol (IP) address acquisition.

18. The method as claimed in claim 15 wherein operating the test host to test the provisioned subscriber services comprises testing access to subscriber services.

19. The method as claimed in claim 15 wherein operating the test host to test the provisioned subscriber services comprises verifying service functions.

20. The method as claimed in claim 19 wherein verifying the service functions comprises at least one of:

using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to transfer a file to or from the Internet;

connecting to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) test signal; and

connecting to a web site.