KR100314582B1 - Method of managing control messages for extending the number of subscriber boards of digital subscriber line access multiplexor - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for efficiently managing a control message used for extension of a subscriber board in an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) based network (DSLAM) system on an asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) is disclosed. According to the type of control message exchanged between the main control board and the expansion shelf and the subscriber board of the expansion shelf, the direction of message delivery and the processing method are separately prepared. As a result, the transmission and processing of the control message is efficiently performed without unnecessary operations, so that the entire subscriber line can be managed efficiently.

Description

METHOD OF MANAGING CONTROL MESSAGES FOR EXTENDING THE NUMBER OF SUBSCRIBER BOARDS OF DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE ACCESS MULTIPLEXOR}

The present invention relates to a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexor (DSLAM) system, which is a concentrator of an Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) system. The present invention relates to a method for efficiently managing a control message used for an extension of a subscriber board in a DRAM system of an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) based network.

ADSL system is a transmission system for providing broadband services such as high-speed Internet access, telephony, VPN, and multimedia communication using existing telephone line in home or small office. It is located at access node of access network and is a subscriber line concentrator. The high frequency component and voice area for the data area at the in-ramp, the subscriber modem located at the end of the subscriber area, ie ADSL Transmission Unit (ADU), ADSL management system, network termination and subscriber area end. It consists of a splitter for filtering and integrating low frequency components.

DSLAM is the link between ADSL subscribers and broadband backbone networks. In terms of location, the DSLAM is often located in the telephone office, depending on the network configuration, or in large apartment management offices or residential dense areas. In terms of function, it receives and multiplexes the signals from multiple ADSL subscribers and transmits them to high-speed backbone such as ATM network or frame relay network, and vice versa. To perform. In addition, ADSL may include a function of separating voice signals coexisting on the same copper wire and separating them into a public telephone network or vice versa.

In general, self-systems with subscriber boards and control boards have their own hardware configuration and message processing processes to transfer information between boards. Several techniques for managing ADSL systems have been disclosed in the past. One of them is Korean Patent Application Publication No. 1998-077103 entitled 'ATU-C Device for ADSL System Maintenance'. The above application discloses a technology that implements communication of alarm and maintenance signals between ATU-M and ATU-C in a shared bus in an ADSL system, and mainly specifies the hardware configuration and data processing in the bus control unit and interrupt processing unit. . However, this application makes no mention of message processing that precedes interrupt processing.

Another example of the prior art is US Pat. No. 5,89,470, entitled "Digital Subscriber Line Access Device Management Information Base." This patent discloses a technology that enables remote management of DSL access equipment using a structured enterprise DSL management information base that defines an object that describes the operation of the DSL access equipment, but this patent defines managed objects in the DSLAM. It does not disclose how to manage the management object internally.

As such, it is difficult to find a conventional technology that directly and specifically discloses an implementation method for processing ADSL configuration information.

The present invention provides a control message management method that can effectively apply the direction and the processing method of the control message between the subscriber board and the main board of the extended shelf to remove unnecessary operations and give efficiency to the management of the entire subscriber line. For that purpose.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a DRAM (DSLAM) system in which an subscriber board is expanded by using an expansion control board.

2 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of the expansion control board.

3 to 10 show a delivery protocol of a control message for subscriber board extension.

<Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

10: main board 14, 48: cell bus processing unit

16, 44: SAR processing unit 18: management system processing unit

20a ~ 20n: Subscriber board 30, 60: shared bus

30a, 30b: expansion board 40: expansion control board

42: expansion line processing section 46: signal processing section

50: interrupt processor 52: message processor

70a ~ 70n: Subscriber Board

In order to achieve the above object, one or more subscriber boards and one or more extension boards are connected to each other through a first shared bus, and a main control board for communicating information with an external management system and managing subscriber boards of the same shelf, and the main control board A method for managing a control message for DSLAM subscriber board expansion by using a DSLAM system having an expansion control board for processing a control message between subscriber boards of an extension shelf, wherein the expansion control board is connected to the main board. A first step of reporting an error state of the extension board and the subscriber board mounted on the extension control board, and the mainboard receiving the report responds to the extension control board; And the subscriber board transmits its status message to the expansion control board, and the expansion control board adds a destination board identifier to the status message to the main control board, and the main control board transmits the transferred status message. Simultaneously with the storing, the control board identifier setting message is transmitted to the expansion control board. Upon receiving the message, the expansion control board transmits a message including the expansion control board identifier value to the subscriber board, and sends a response to the expansion board. Provided is a method for managing a control message for extending a DSLAM subscriber board, comprising a second step of transmitting to a control board and the mainboard.

The main control board transmits a standard time setting message to the expansion control board using the current time information transmitted from an external manager, and the expansion control board receiving the standard time setting message delivers time information to the subscriber board. And further receiving the response.

In addition, the method is ATU-C line configuration setting message, ATU-R line configuration setting message, power-related line configuration setting message, which is a message used to convey the configuration information of the line when the line is initialized at the subscriber's request, When the main board receives the ATU-C alarm configuration setting message and the ATU-R alarm configuration setting message, the message is transmitted to the expansion control board, and the expansion control board transmits these messages to the subscriber board again. The subscriber board may further include directly transmitting one response message to the five messages to the mainboard without undergoing message processing by the extension control board.

The method may further include controlling the virtual channel connection (VCC) message to set the virtual path / virtual channel information for the ATM network and the virtual path / virtual channel information for the ADSL subscriber network. The extended control board which transmits the message to the board and receives the virtual channel connection message transmits the contents to the subscriber board, and the subscriber board receives the message to inform the ATM level driver of the value and the response message to the extension. The method may further include transmitting the message directly to the main board without going through the message processing by the control board.

Furthermore, the method further includes an active subscriber board delivering a line activity report message directly to the main board without processing the message by the extended control board, wherein the main board receives the line activity response message through the extended control board. The method may further include delivering to the subscriber board.

The method transmits the ATU-C company information report message and the ATU-R company information report message with the board manufacturer information directly to the main board without the message processing by the extended control board. The board may further include transmitting a response message to the subscriber board through the extension control board.

In addition, the main control board transmits a predetermined time error sum request message of an ADSL line to an expansion control board of an expansion shelf, and the expansion control board acknowledges the main control board and simultaneously sends the request message to the subscriber board. The method may further include collecting error time sum information by passing a predetermined time and transferring the entire data to the main board when the collection is completed.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The present invention provides a control message management method used to extend a subscriber board in a DSLAM system of an ATM-based network on an ADSL. As related to a system related to the implementation of this method, a block diagram showing the configuration of a DSLAM system in which an subscriber board is extended using an extension control board is shown in FIG.

In order to expand the subscriber board, a plurality of shelves are used instead of a single shelf. The central shelf has a main control board 10. The main control board 10 can exchange information with an external management system and manage a subscriber board of the same shelf, and has a cell bus processing unit 14, a SAR processing unit 16, and a management system processing unit 18.

The shared bus 30 of the central shelf to which the main board 10 is connected is connected to a plurality of expansion boards 30a and 30b as well as n subscriber board groups 20a to 20n. Expansion boards are the boards needed to connect the center and expansion shelves.

Expansion control boards 40 are connected to the expansion boards 30a and 30b through extension lines, and a plurality of subscriber boards 70a to 70n are further connected to each of the expansion control boards 40 through the shared bus 60. .

The expansion control board 40 is disposed between the main control board 10 and the subscriber boards 70a to 70n of the expansion shelf and controls the subscriber boards 70a to 70n according to the command of the main control board 10 of the expansion shelf. As a command to the main board 10 to the subscriber board (70a ~ 70n), and delivers the report content of the subscriber board directly to the control board or collects and serves to deliver. The expansion control board 40 includes an expansion line processing unit 42, a SAR processing unit 44, a signal processing unit 46, a cell bus processing unit 48, an interrupt processing unit 50, and a message processing unit 52.

2 shows an example of a hardware configuration of the expansion control board 40 having the above functional blocks.

The extension line processing units 42 and 90 are hardware modules that process line signals between the expansion boards 30a and 30b of the center shelf and the expansion control board 40 of the extension shelf. As the extension line, physical layers such as SONET and DS3 may be used.

The SAR processing units 44 and 84 combine the ATM cells input through the extension line into meaningful frames or divide the frames generated by the extension control board 40 into several ATM cells. The function of this processing unit is used to transmit the large unit performance information of the extended shelf subscriber boards 70a to 70n to the main board 10.

The board status signal processing logics 46 and 92 may directly recognize whether the subscriber boards 70a to 70n are mounted and whether there are path errors through signals. The transmission and reception of cells for message transmission between the expansion control board 40 and the subscriber boards 70a to 70n is performed through the cellbus interface logic 94, and an input between the cellbus interface logic and the central processing unit 86 is performed. FIFO 96 and output FIFO 98 are present to act as a buffer between hardware and software.

When a cell including a control message arrives at the input FIFO 96, the interrupt processing unit 50 operates by an interrupt routine. In the interrupt processing unit 50, a copying process of a cell and an input process to a task are performed in the FIFO.

The message processing unit 52 processes the information of the subscriber board entered through the interrupt processing unit 50 or the control message entered through the extension line processing unit 90. The flash memory 84 includes an initialization code of the control board, and the RAM 88 has a code and a storage space for processing a message.

Hereinafter, a description will be given of the transmission protocol of the control message between the subscriber board (70a ~ 70n) and the main board (10) of the extended shelf in the DSLAM system of the above configuration.

The configuration control messages of the system are largely extended control board status report and response message, subscriber board status report message, control board identifier setting and response message, standard time setting and response message, ATU-C line configuration setting message, ATU-R line Configuration Setup Message, Power Related Line Configuration Setup Message, ATU-C Alarm Configuration Setup Message, ATU-R Alarm Configuration Setup Message and Configuration Response Message, Line Activity Report and Response Message, ATU-C Company Information Report Message, ATU-R Company Information report message, company information response message, virtual channel access (VCC) setting and response message are defined and used.

Performance failure control messages include ADSL line status request and response messages, ADSL line error sum request and response messages, ADSL line 15 minute error request and response messages, ADSL line 15 minute error sum request and response messages, and line error reporting and response. Define and use a message.

Transmission and management for each message as described above is performed as follows.

First, referring to FIG. 3, the extended control board status report message is a message transmitted by the extended control boards 40 and 200 to the main control boards 10 and 100, and error states and extended control of the extended boards 30a and 30b. Informs the subscriber board (70a ~ 70n) mounted on the board (40). This information is passed through the board status signal processing logic 92. Meanwhile, the main board 100 receiving the extended control board status report message responds to the extended control board 200.

On the other hand, the subscriber board (70a ~ 70n, 300) transmits the subscriber board status report message to the extended control board 200. Since the subscriber board 300 does not yet know the control board identifier, the sender board identifier portion of the message header to be transmitted is not perfect. Therefore, the expansion boards 30a and 30b complete the source board identifier portion of the message header and transmit the completed board 30a to the main board 100. The main board 100 stores the message contents and transmits a control board identifier setting message to the extended control board 200. Upon receiving this message, the extended control board 200 transmits a message including the extended control board identifier value to the subscriber board 300 and sends a response to the extended control board 200 and the main board 100.

Fig. 5 shows the delivery protocol of control messages regarding standard time setting and response. The standard time setting message is the control message necessary to spread the information to all boards after receiving the current time information from the external administrator. The main board 100 must first inform the extended control board 200 of the time information to propagate the time information to the subscriber boards 20a to 20n in the same shelf as well as the subscriber boards in the other shelf. To this end, the main control board 100 transmits the standard time setting message to the expansion control board 200 using the current time information transmitted from the external manager, and the extended control board 200 receiving the standard time setting message is a subscriber. After receiving the time information to the board 300 receives a response from the subscriber board (300).

In order to initialize a line according to a subscriber's request, configuration information of the line is required, and a message transfer protocol related thereto is illustrated in FIG. The messages used to convey the line configuration information are ATU-C line configuration message, ATU-R line configuration message, power related line configuration message, ATU-C alarm configuration message and ATU-R alarm configuration message. to be. This message is input by an external administrator, the main control board 100 receives the input and transmits the message to the expansion control board 200, the expansion control board 200 transfers the contents back to the subscriber board (300) do. The extended control board 200 may store and manage the configuration information of each line. The response is performed only once for five set messages, not for each message. In addition, the main control board 100 may be directly transmitted without processing the message processor 52 of the expansion control board 200 to reduce the burden on the expansion control board 200.

7 illustrates a delivery protocol of a configuration message for a virtual channel connection (VCC). First, the main control board 100 transmits a virtual channel connection (VCC) message for setting the virtual path / virtual channel information toward the ATM network and the virtual path / virtual channel information toward the ADSL subscriber network to the expansion control board 200. do. The extended control board 200 receiving the virtual channel connection (VCC) message delivers the contents to the subscriber board (300). The subscriber board 300 receives the message, informs the ATM level driver of the value, and immediately sends the response message to the main board 100 without going through the message processing by the extension control board 200.

ADSL line status request and response message requesting status information of current line, ADSL line error sum request and response message requesting sum of various error of ADSL line after reset, ADSL line reference time occurred within reference time (e.g. 15 minutes) Error request and response messages do the same.

8 shows a message transfer protocol regarding line activation. The activated subscriber board 300 directly transmits the line activity report message to the main board 100 without going through the message processing by the expansion control board 200. The main control board 100 receiving the line activity report message transfers the line activity response message to the subscriber board 300 through the expansion control board 200. Line error report and response messages are also delivered in the same way.

9 illustrates a transfer protocol of information about a board manufacturer. The subscriber board 300 directly transmits the ATU-C company information report message with the board manufacturer information and the ATU-R company information report message to the main control board 100 without going through the message processing by the extended control board 200. . This is because the extended control board does not need the above information. The main control board 100 transmits the response message to the subscriber board 300 through the expansion control board 200.

10 illustrates a delivery protocol for a message reporting an error that has occurred as a whole. The main board 100 requests 15 minute error sum information of ADSL lines per line for all subscriber boards at predetermined time intervals, for example, at 15 minute intervals. For the subscriber boards 70a to 70n in the extension shelf, the main control board 100 transmits an ADSL line 15-minute error sum request message to the extension control board 200 of the extension shelf, and the extension control board 200 receives the main control board. Acknowledgment to the board (100) and at the same time delivers the above request message to the subscriber board (300) to collect a predetermined time error total information. When the collection is completed, the entire data is transmitted to the main board 100 through the SAR processor 44. The use of the SAR processing section 44 is for processing a large amount of information at once.

In the above description, a method of transmitting and managing a control message used to extend a subscriber board in a DRAM system of an ATM-based network on an ADSL has been disclosed. However, the technical principles of the present invention may be modified by modifying a message type as well as a DSLAM system for an ADSL. The present invention can also be applied to information exchange between main boards, expansion control boards, and subscriber boards of the subscriber line concentrators for SDD and VDL.

According to the present invention, it is possible to expand the subscriber board and to efficiently manage the expanded subscriber board. That is, according to the type of control message exchanged between the main control board and the expansion shelf and the subscriber board of the expansion shelf, the message delivery direction and the processing method are separately prepared so that the transmission and processing of the control message can be efficiently performed without unnecessary operations. To be able. As a result, the entire subscriber line can be managed efficiently.

Although the above has been described with reference to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, those skilled in the art will be variously modified and changed within the scope of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention described in the claims below. I can understand that you can.

Claims (7)

A method for managing a control message for DSLAM subscriber board expansion using a DSLAM system having an expansion control board for processing control messages between a main board of a central shelf and a subscriber board of an extension shelf, A first step of the expansion control board reporting an error state of the expansion board and the subscriber board mounted on the expansion shelf to the main control board, and the main control board receiving the report responds to the expansion control board; And A second step in which the subscriber board transmits its status message to the extended control board, and the extended control board adds a source board identifier to the status message to the main control board; The main board stores the transferred status message and transmits a control board identifier setting message to the extended control board. The extended control board receiving the message sends a message added with the extended control board identifier value to the subscriber board. Transmitting a third step; And And the subscriber board has a fourth step of transmitting a response thereto to the mainboard via the expansion control board. The extended control board of claim 1, wherein the main control board transfers a standard time setting message to the extended control board using current time information transmitted from an external manager of a DSLAM system, and the extended control board receiving the standard time setting message is a subscriber. And transmitting the time information to the board and receiving a response thereof. The ATU-C line configuration setting message according to claim 1 or 2, which is a message input from an external administrator to the main board, a message used to convey configuration information of a line when initializing a line according to a subscriber's request, and an ATU. -R line configuration setting message, power related line configuration setting message, ATU-C alarm configuration setting message and ATU-R alarm configuration setting message, when the main board receives, these messages are stored and sent to the expansion control board again. The extended control board transfers these messages back to the subscriber board, and the subscriber board transmits one response message to the main board directly without going through the message processing by the extended control board. Managing a control message for DSLAM subscriber board extension, further comprising the step of: Way. [4] The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the mainboard transmits a virtual channel connection (VCC) message for setting virtual path / virtual channel information for an ATM network and virtual path / virtual channel information for an ADSL subscriber network. The extended control board receiving the virtual channel connection (VCC) message transmits the contents to the subscriber board, and the subscriber board receives the message and informs the ATM level driver outside the DSLAM system of the value. And transmitting a response message directly to the main board without going through the message processing by the extension control board. 5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the activated subscriber board transfers a line activity report message directly to the main board without going through a message processing by the extended control board, and the main board receives a line activity response message through the extended control board. And transmitting to the subscriber board, the control message for extending the DSLAM subscriber board. 6. The subscriber board of claim 5, wherein the subscriber board immediately delivers the ATU-C company information report message and the ATU-R company information report message with the board manufacturer information to the main board without the message processing by the extended control board. And the main control board further comprising transmitting a response message to the subscriber board through the extension control board. The main control board of claim 6, wherein the main control board transmits a predetermined time error sum request message of an ADSL line to an extended control board of an extended shelf, and the extended control board acknowledges the main control board and simultaneously sends the subscriber board to the subscriber board. Collecting error total information for a predetermined time by delivering a request message, and if the collection is completed, the corresponding total information to the main board, further comprising the step of managing a control message for DSLAM subscriber board extension.