Trade.Information

Product Name: Alcatel-Lucent PRC Manager

Product Description

The Alcatel-Lucent Protection Restoration Combined Manager (PRC Manager) application manages Network Protection Restoration for networks based on Optical Path Switches (OPS). 

The OPS is an equipment dedicated to the protection of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) transmission networks. It typically applies to city-to-city networks made of one submarine ring inserted between two terrestrial back-haul networks. It operates on a per wavelength basis.

Benefits

• Provides facilities to monitor and control the routing of each city-to-city channel, by managing the state of the optical switches

• Ensures Fault Detection and Localization

• Interfaces with other applications in the Network Management System (1353SH, 1354RM), to provide customers with information about

• OPS and links status

• Provides automatic path protection recovery, thanks to a routing algorithm which is able to identify the faulty paths, identify the network resources available for OPS protection, and reconfigure the OPS modules to set up the new protection schem

Features

• Graphical User Interface (GUI)

• Fault Detection and Localization

• Automatic Switch

• Interface with other applications in the Network Management System

• Topological view of the WDM system

Documents

The Protection Restoration Combined Manager (PRC Manager) application aims at managing Network Protection Restoration for networks based on Optical Path Switches (OPS). The OPS is an equipment dedicated to the protection of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) transmission networks. Typically it applies on cityto- city networks made of one submarine ring inserted between two terrestrial back-haul networks. It operates on a per wavelength basis.

Protection Restoration Combined

The OPS-based WDM networks make use of a self-healing Sub-Network Connection Protection (SNCP) mechanism, combined with a Operating System driving the protection restoration mechanism. This approach benefits from the fast recovery time of the SNCP protection and from the flexibility of a protection restoration mechanism. In case of a transmission failure, the SNCP protection is able to recover the traffic within 50 ms. After that, the PRC Manager is able to re-build the protection on the lightpath (optical channel) to anticipate the occurrence of any later additional transmission failure.

The PRC Manager offers a simple and unique topological view of the WDM network, showing the optical switches and the links between them. It provides facilities to monitor and control the routing of each city-to-city channel by managing the state of the optical switches. To restore the protection of a channel, the PRC Manager reconfigures the network by sending controls to the OPS network elements.

The PRC Manager displays a graphical view of a selected optical channel -including OPS switch modules and links - to continuously provide the operator with the following information: OPS status (alarms, switch positions and states) and Link status (faulty links, links out of service, links not allowed because of routing constraints). Only one optical channel (both directions) can be displayed at a time. City-to-City level and Network level can also be displayed. In that case, only status and alarm synthesis are available. The switch position can not be displayed.

Fault Detection and Localization

Fault detection is based on alarms coming from the OPS network elements and from alarm synthesis coming from the 1354RM. An alarm hold-off time is needed to wait for alarm stabilization. Once time is elapsed, a fault localization mechanism, based on an analysis of the alarms according to the topology, starts to find the primary alarm and to determine the faulty link.

When an OPS module, managing one channel, which has been put in the automatic switching mode, detects a fault, it immediately switches over to the alternate route, and notifies the PRC Manager. The operator is then warned of this event.

The automatic path protection recovery is based on a routing algorithm able to identify the faulty paths, identify the network resources available for OPS protection and at last reconfigure the OPS modules to set up the new protection scheme. In order to avoid unnecessary traffic hits, the routing algorithm does not spontaneously optimize the restoration configuration after a transmission fault has been recovered. The system warns the operator in order to allow him to grant or deny the reconfiguration.

The PRC Manager offers to the operator the possibility to constrain the routing of a channel by excluding one or more links of the possible routes. The routing algorithm manages such a link in the same way has a faulty or out of service link.

The PRC Manager prevents the operator from applying controls on other parts of the network than a restricted subset of optical channels. It manages therefore operator login and profile (Functional access domains and Network access domains).

Interfaces between PRC Manager and Applications

The PRC Manager interfaces with other applications of the Network Management System (1353SH, 1354RM) to provide customer with information about OPS and links status.

- Hardware components: the PRC Manager is available on Hewlett- Packard's workstation or servers; - Software components: the PRC Manager is built on a generic software platform. The software platform consists of both Alcatel software modules and first rank international companies.

The PRC Manager is supplied on projects such as Flag Atlantic -1.