Digital cross connect system

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Jump to: navigation, search A digital cross-connect system (DCS or DXC) is a piece of circuit-switched network equipment, used in telecommunications networks, that allows lower-level TDM bit streams, such as DS0 bit streams, to be rearranged and interconnected among higher-level TDM signals, such as DS1 bit streams. DCS units are available that operate on both older T-carrier/E-carrier bit streams, as well as newer SONET/SDH bit streams. DCS devices can be used for "grooming" telecommunications traffic, switching traffic from one circuit to another in the event of a network failure, supporting automated provisioning, and other applications. Having a DCS in a circuit-switched network provides important flexibility that can otherwise only be obtained at higher cost using manual "DSX" cross-connect patch panels. It is important to realize that while DCS devices "switch" traffic, they are not packet switches they switch circuits, not packets, and the circuit arrangements they are used to manage tend to persist over very long time spans, typically months or longer, as compared to packet switches, which can route every packet differently, and operate on micro- or millisecond time spans. DCS units are also sometimes colloquially called "DACS" units, after a proprietary brand name of DCS units created and sold by AT&T's Western Electric division, now Alcatel-Lucent. Not to be mistaken for Digital Access Carrier System, a British pair gain system also using the acronym DACS'. Modern digital access and cross-connect systems are not limited to the T-carrier system, and may accommodate high data rates such as those of SONET.

[edit] See also

Optical cross-connect

[edit] References

This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C". Cisco Technical Glossary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cross_connect_system

Optical cross-connect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) An optical cross-connect (OXC) is a device used by telecommunications carriers to switch high-speed optical signals in a fiber optic network, such as an optical mesh network. There are several ways to realize an OXC:

Opaque OXCs (electronic switching) - One can implement an OXC in the electronic domain: all the input optical signals are converted into electronic signals after they are demultiplexed by demultiplexers. The electronic signals are then switched by an electronic switch module. Finally the switched electronic signals are converted back into optical signals by using them to modulate lasers and then the resulting optical signals are multiplexed by optical multiplexers onto outlet optical fibers. This is known as an "OEO" (Optical-Electrical-Optical) design. Cross-connects based on an OEO switching process generally have a key limitation: the electronic circuits limit the maximum bandwidth of the signal. Such an architecture prevents an OXC from performing with the same speed as an all-optical cross-connect, and is not transparent to the network protocols used. On the other hand, it is easy to monitor signal quality in an OEO device, since everything is converted back to the electronic format at the switch node. An additional advantage is that the optical signals are regenerated, so they leave the node free of dispersion and attenuation. An electronic OXC is also called an opaque OXC. Transparent OXCs (optical switching) - Switching optical signals in an all-optical device is the second approach to realize an OXC. Such a switch is often called a transparent OXC or photonic cross-connect (PXC). Specifically, optical signals are demultiplexed, then the demultiplexed wavelengths are switched by optical switch modules. After switching, the optical signals are multiplexed onto output fibers by optical multiplexers. Such a switch architecture keeps the features of data rate and protocol transparency. However, because the signals are kept in the optical format, the transparent OXC architecture does not allow easy optical signal quality monitoring. Translucent OXCs (optical and electronic switching) - As a compromise between opaque and transparent OXC's, there is a type of OXC called a translucent OXC. In such a switch architecture, there is a switch stage which consists of an optical switch module and an electronic switch module. Optical signals passing through the switch stage can be switched either by the optical switch module or the electronic switch module. In most cases, the optical switch module is preferred for the purpose of transparency. When the optical switch module's switching interfaces are all busy or an optical signal needs signal regeneration through an OEO conversion process, the electronic module is used. Translucent OXC nodes provide a compromise of full optical signal transparency and comprehensive optical signal monitoring. It also provides the possibility of signal regeneration at each node.

An optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) can be viewed as a special case of an OXC, where to node degree is two.

[edit] See also

Optical switch Optical Carrier MEMS Digital access and cross-connect system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_cross-connect