JP2002135323A - Backup line control method and its system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a backup line control method and its system that can usually use a backup line so as to effectively use it. SOLUTION: In a communication network having a leased line and a backup line between communication units to which terminals are respectively connected, the communication units measure traffic of data from the terminals for each prescribed time and set destinations of the data so that the communication units make communication with each other by using both the leased line and the backup line for a time zone when the traffic exceeds a communication capability of the leased line.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling a backup line in a communication network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a communication network for performing data communication between terminals using a high-speed digital line or an ATM dedicated line (hereinafter, referred to as a dedicated line), if a failure occurs in the dedicated line, the cost is reduced. In consideration of the nature, advanced information communication system (Information Network System; hereafter INS)
Generally, a public line such as a line is installed to back up a communication line, and a public line such as an INS line is generally used exclusively for the backup line.

As a prior art for performing a backup line connection operation via an INS line or a public telephone network when a dedicated line is interrupted, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-12103 is disclosed.
No. 0 publication. In the prior art, detourable time zone information is provided in advance in a data exchange or the like for each line, and when a dedicated line fails, the data exchange refers to the time zone information and a detourable time zone in which date and time are specified is specified. The detour connection is performed only when the distance is within the range.

[0004]

As described above, in the above-mentioned prior art in which a backup line is connected via an INS line or a public telephone network when a dedicated line is interrupted, a public line such as an INS line is used. Is used as a backup dedicated line and cannot be used effectively at normal times.

[0005] Further, since the contract speed of the leased line is fixedly determined, for example, the contract speed of the leased line is 1 Mbps (bi
t per second), the total communication speed of the terminal is 1.1M
If the total communication speed of the terminals actually communicating exceeds the contract speed at all, such as in the case of bps, it is necessary to increase the contract speed of the dedicated line to a higher contract speed, which is economically wasteful.

Further, depending on the type of business, some terminals use a dedicated line only for one hour at the end of the month and one hour at the weekend.
In some cases, dedicated lines may not be used at all times. In such a case, if the communication speed exceeding the contracted speed can be allocated to the INS line and communication can be performed, the cost can be reduced rather than increasing the contracted speed of the dedicated line. Can be.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a backup line control method and a backup line control method capable of using a backup line at normal times to achieve effective use.

[0008]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, according to the present invention, a first communication device is connected between a communication device to which a terminal is connected.
In a communication network having a second line and a second line, at predetermined time intervals, a traffic amount of data from the terminal is measured, and in a time zone in which the traffic amount exceeds the communication band of the dedicated line, A destination of the data from the terminal is set to the communication device so that communication is performed using both a line and the backup line.

More specifically, the communication apparatus of the present invention monitors a buffer for temporarily storing fixed-length packets, a table for storing the destination of the fixed-length packets, monitors the buffers, and stores the buffers in the buffers. Monitoring means for measuring the number of fixed-length packets at predetermined time intervals; comparing means for comparing the measured number of fixed-length packets with a predetermined threshold value in the buffer; , The first line and the second line can be used in combination.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A backup line control method and apparatus according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a network configuration diagram showing an example of the configuration of a communication network to which the present invention is applied. FIG.
The telephone terminals 122 to 123 and the facsimile terminal 12
5 and 126 are private branch exchanges (Private Branch Exchange)
e; hereinafter, referred to as PBX) 130, the data terminals 127 and 128 perform time division multiplexing (Time Division Multiplexing).
iplexer; hereinafter, referred to as TDM)
The data terminals 129 are each connected to the communication device 133 via the router device 132. Similarly, telephone terminals 134 to 136 and facsimile terminals 137 and 138
Are connected to the data terminals 139 and 140 via the PBX 142.
Via the TDM device 143, the data terminal 141
Each is connected to a communication device 145 via a router device 144. The communication device 133 and the communication device 14
5 is via dedicated line 146 or INS line 147,
Interconnected. Further, a network management device 154 that manages the entire communication network is connected to the communication device 133. Here, in the communication network shown in FIG. 1, for example, the communication bands of the dedicated line 146 and the INS line are set to 1152 kbps (bit per second), 15
36 kbps. In addition, telephone terminals 122 to 124,
The communication speed of 134 to 136 is 8 kbps, and the communication speed of facsimile terminals 125, 126, 137, and 138 is 9.
6 kbps, communication speed of data terminals 127 and 139 is 7
68 kbps, the communication speed of the data terminals 128 and 140 is 128 kbps, and the communication speed of the data terminals 129 and 141 is 384 kbps. As will be described later in detail, the present invention aims to make effective use of the INS line 147 by using the dedicated line 146 and the ISN line 147 together in a time period when the traffic of the terminal is larger than the predetermined communication band of the dedicated line 146. Things.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the communication device 133 or 145. Communication device 133
Is a voice channel interface unit 201, a data channel interface unit 202, a switch 203,
Multiplexing section 204 and high-speed trunk line interface section 20
5 and a control unit 206. Phone terminal 1
Voice data from 22 to 124 and facsimile terminal 1
The facsimile data from 25 and 126 is PBX13
After being terminated by the voice channel interface unit 201 of the communication device 133 via the communication device 133, the data is transmitted to the control unit 206. The control unit 206 controls the voice channel interface unit 2
The voice data and the facsimile data received from the voice channel 01 are compressed and transmitted to the voice channel interface unit 201 again. The voice channel interface unit 201 assembles the received compressed data into fixed-length packets (for example, cells) and transmits the packets to the switch 203. The data from the data terminals 127 and 128 and the data from the data terminal 129 are transmitted to the data channel interface unit 202 of the communication device 133 via the TDM device 131 and the router device 132, respectively. The data channel interface unit 202 assembles data received from the TDM device 131 and the router device 132 into fixed-length packets, and transmits the packets to the switch 203. The switch 203 is
A buffer for temporarily storing the received fixed-length packets, and setting the destination according to the contents of the header of the fixed-length packets read from the buffer;
Send to 4. The multiplexing unit 204 multiplexes the fixed-length packets received from the switch 203 and transmits the multiplexed packets to the high-speed trunk line interface unit 205. The multiplexed fixed-length packets are transmitted to the opposite communication device 145 via the high-speed trunk line interface unit 205 and the dedicated line 146.

The data received via the leased line 146 and the high-speed trunk line interface unit 205 is separated by the multiplexing unit 204 into fixed-length packets,
03 is sent. The switch 203 analyzes the destination indicated in the header of the received fixed-length packet, and according to the destination, the audio data channel interface 201
Alternatively, the fixed length packet is transmitted to the data channel interface unit 202. Voice channel interface unit 20
1 generates the original compressed data from the received fixed-length packet and transmits it to the control unit 206. The control unit 206 decompresses the received compressed data and transmits the compressed data to the audio channel interface unit 201 again. Voice interface unit 2
01 transmits the decompressed data to the PBX 130.
Also, the data channel interface unit 202 generates original data from the received fixed-length packet,
It is transmitted to the device 131 or the router device 132. Further, the high-speed trunk line interface unit 205 has a function of detecting a failure of the dedicated line and recovery from a failure.
To the control unit 206. The control unit 206 has a function of setting the destination of the fixed-length packet in response to the interrupt notification and a function of measuring the number of fixed-length packets stored in the buffer of the switch at predetermined time intervals. In the present invention,
By using the dedicated line 146 and the ISN line 147 together, the INS line 147 is effectively used during a time period in which the number of fixed-length packets per predetermined time measured by the control unit 206 exceeds the predetermined threshold value of the buffer. Can be achieved.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the switch 203, the high-speed trunk line interface unit 205, and the control unit 206. The switch 203 includes a buffer 301, a table 302, and a switch control unit 303.
And an exchange unit 304. Buffer 30
1 temporarily stores fixed-length packets received from the voice channel interface unit 201 and the data channel interface unit 202. The table 302 stores destinations of fixed-length packets. The switch control unit 303
Referring to the destination stored in the table 302, the destination is set in the header of the fixed-length packet. The switch control unit 303 includes a timer 305, and performs address management of the buffer 301 and the table 302, and controls writing of fixed-length packets to the buffer 301 and reading from the buffer 301. The exchange unit 304 exchanges fixed-length packets based on the destination stored in the table 302. The high-speed trunk line interface unit 205 includes the data processing unit 30
6, a line failure / recovery detection unit 307, and an interrupt notification unit 3
08. The data processing unit 306 performs processing of multiplexed data received from the multiplexing unit 204, processing of data received from the dedicated line 146, and the like. The line failure / recovery detection unit 307 detects the failure of the dedicated line 146 and the recovery from the failure. The interrupt notification unit 308 outputs the interrupt signal 21
0, the control unit 206 is notified of the failure of the dedicated line 146 or the recovery from the failure. The control unit 206 includes a data compression / decompression unit 309, a monitoring unit 310, a memory 311, a network management device interface unit 312, and a common control unit 313. The data compression / decompression unit 308 compresses and decompresses data received from the voice channel interface unit. The monitoring unit 310 monitors the buffer 301 of the switch 203, measures the number of fixed-length packets stored in the buffer 301 at predetermined time intervals, and writes the result in the memory 311. The network management device 154 has the memory 3
11, the number of fixed-length packets per predetermined time and the buffer 301 obtained from the predetermined communication band of the dedicated line 146.
To determine whether to use the INS line 147 or not. The network management device 154 sets the network management device interface unit to perform communication using both the dedicated line 146 and the INS line 147 during a time period in which the measured number of fixed-length packets exceeds the threshold value of the buffer 301. 31
Instruct 2 to set the destination of the fixed-length packet. Upon receiving the instruction, the network management device interface unit 312 sets the destination of the fixed-length packet in the table 302 of the switch 203.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram showing an example of the configuration of the memory 311. The memory 311 stores a unit time (for example, 1
Information 402 indicating the time 401 inscribed for each time) and the number of fixed-length packets stored in the buffer 301 of the switch 203 at that time are stored. Here, for example, 2
In the time zone of 4:00 to 1:00, a fixed length packet of 68k is used. In the time zone of 23:00 to 24:00, 100 packets are used.
80k fixed-length packets are stored in the buffer 301, respectively.
It shows that it was accumulated.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing an example of the configuration of the table 302. The table 302 includes a time 501 and connection information of a fixed-length packet received from the voice channel interface unit 201 or the data channel interface unit 202 (for example, a virtual path identifier (Vi
rtual Path Identifier (VPI), Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI)) 502
And information indicating the destination 503 of the fixed-length packet. Here, for example, in the time zone of 24:00 to 1:00, each fixed-length packet is transmitted to the dedicated line 146,
In the time zone of 23:00 to 24:00, it indicates that each fixed length packet is transmitted to the INS line 147.

FIG. 6 is a processing flowchart showing an example of a processing procedure for determining whether or not the INS line 147 is used. The monitoring unit 310 of the communication device 133 measures the number of fixed-length packets stored in the buffer 301 of the switch 203, and writes the measurement result in the memory 311 (step (hereinafter, referred to as S).
It is written. ) 601). Next, based on the contents of the memory 311, the network management device 154 compares the number of fixed-length packets for each predetermined time with the threshold value of the buffer 301 obtained from the predetermined communication band of the dedicated line 146 (S 602). If the measured number of fixed-length packets does not exceed the threshold value of the buffer 301, it is determined that only the dedicated line 146 is used,
The destination of the fixed-length packet is instructed to the network management device interface unit 312 (S603). If the measured number of fixed-length packets exceeds the threshold value of the buffer 301, the difference value is compared with the allowable fixed-length packet number obtained from a predetermined communication band of the INS line 147 (S6).
04). If the number of fixed-length packets exceeds the difference value, it is determined that the dedicated line 146 and the INS line 147 are used together, and a destination setting instruction for the fixed-length packets is issued to the network management device interface unit 312 (S605). . Upon receiving the instruction, the network management device interface unit 312 sets the destination of the fixed-length packet in the table 302 of the switch 203 (S606). If the number of fixed-length packets does not exceed the difference value, an INS line 147 is added and S602
Return to the processing of.

In the embodiment described above, one day (24
The case where the communication network is operated by determining whether or not the INS line 147 is used at every predetermined time (time) is shown, but by measuring the number of fixed-length packets for a long time,
It is also possible to determine the use of the INS line 147 for each day of the week or for each month, and operate the communication network.

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart showing an example of an operation when a failure occurs in a dedicated line or when a failure is recovered. When the line failure / restoration detection unit 307 detects a failure or restoration of a dedicated line (S701), the interruption notification unit 308 sends the interruption signal 2
10, the common control unit 313 is notified of this.
(S702). The common control unit 313 analyzes the content of the notification, recognizes whether the failure is a failure of the dedicated line or the recovery from the failure, and notifies the network management device interface unit 312 of that (S703). The network management device 154 recognizes, via the network management device interface unit 312, the failure or restoration of the dedicated line. When the network management device 154 recognizes the failure of the leased line, the network management device interface unit 312 causes the fixed length packet to be exchanged with the INS line 147.
An instruction for setting the destination is issued (S704). When the network management device 154 recognizes that the dedicated line has recovered from the failure, the network management device interface 31 based on the processing flow shown in FIG.
2 is instructed to set the destination of the fixed-length packet (S7).
04). Upon receiving the instruction to set the destination, the network management device interface unit 312
Then, the destination is set in S2 (S705). According to the operation flow described above, when a failure occurs in the dedicated line 146, each fixed-length packet is exchanged for the INS line 147. Also,
When the failure on the leased line 146 is restored, the fixed-length packet is exchanged for the leased line 146 or the leased line 146 and the INS line 147 based on the measured traffic of the terminal every predetermined time.

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the function of the network management device 154 may be provided in the control unit 206.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a communication network having a dedicated line and a backup line between communication devices to which terminals are connected, data from the terminals is transmitted at predetermined time intervals. Measuring the traffic volume, and in a time zone where the traffic volume exceeds the communication band of the dedicated line, perform communication using both the dedicated line and the backup line, and set the destination of the data from the terminal to the By setting to the communication device, INS
It is possible to provide a backup line control method and an apparatus thereof that can use a line even at a normal time and can effectively use the line.

Further, by using a dedicated line and an INS line together, a significant cost reduction can be achieved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration 1 of a communication network to which the present invention is applied.
FIG. 2 is a network configuration diagram showing an example.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a communication device.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a switch, a high-speed trunk line interface unit, and a control unit;

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a memory;

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a table.

FIG. 6 is a processing flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure for determining whether or not an INS line is used;

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart showing an example of an operation at the time of failure of a dedicated line or recovery from a failure.

[Explanation of symbols]

122, 123, 124, 134, 135, 136: telephone terminals, 125, 126, 137, 138: facsimile terminals 127, 128, 129, 139, 140, 1
41 ... data terminal, 130, 142 ... PBX, 131,
143: TDM device, 132, 144: Router device, 1
46: dedicated line, 147: INS line, 154: network management device, 201: voice channel interface unit, 202 ...
Data channel interface section, 203 ... switch,
204: multiplexing unit, 205: high-speed trunk line interface unit, 206: control unit, 301: buffer, 302: table, 303: switch control unit, 304: switching unit, 3
05: timer, 306: data processing unit, 307: line failure / recovery detection unit, 308: interrupt notification unit, 309: data compression / decompression unit, 310: monitoring unit, 311: memory, 3
12: Network management device interface unit, 313: Common control unit

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Sadato Ando 890 Kashimada, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Within the Social & Network Systems Division, Hitachi, Ltd. 890 Hitachi, Ltd. Social and Network Systems Division (72) Inventor Hiroyuki Kobayashi 890 Kashimada, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in Hitachi, Ltd. Social and Network Systems Division 5K021 AA06 BB06 CC11 DD02 FF04 5K051 AA01 AA05 BB01 BB02 CC02 CC04 CC08 DD09 DD13 FF03 FF11 GG06 GG17 HH27 KK02 KK03 LL02 LL07 5K069 AA08 BA02 CA01 CA02 CA03 CB02 CB04 CB08 DA05 FC16

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A backup line control method for a communication network having a first line and a second line between communication devices to which terminals are connected, wherein a traffic amount of data from the terminal is determined at predetermined time intervals. Is measured, and during the time period when the traffic amount exceeds the communication band of the first line, the data from the terminal is communicated using the first line and the second line together. A backup line control method, wherein a destination is set to the communication device. 2. A communication device that uses a first line and a second line together, comprising: a buffer for temporarily storing fixed-length packets; a table for storing a destination of the fixed-length packets; Monitoring means for monitoring the number of fixed-length packets stored in the buffer at predetermined intervals, and comparing means for comparing the measured number of fixed-length packets with a predetermined threshold value in the buffer. A communication device comprising: destination setting means for setting a destination of the fixed-length packet in the table. 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the destination setting unit is configured to determine whether the measured number of fixed-length packets exceeds the threshold value.
The communication device according to claim 2, wherein the destination of the fixed-length packet is set in the table so that the first line and the second line are used together. 4. The communication device according to claim 2, wherein the destination stored in the table is managed at a predetermined time.