Cloud dedicated line and customer access technology networking solutions

Labs Guide

As cloud-network integration becomes increasingly popular, the demand for cloud dedicated lines and customer service continues to increase and change. At the same time, terminal access technology is also evolving. How to better build customer access in practical applications is an issue that currently requires in-depth research. To this end, this article analyzes customer demand and starts from access technology, and puts forward suggestions on new technologies and applications, in order to provide some reference for cloud dedicated lines and customer access.

As my country's cloud computing development enters the stage of popularization, cloud-network integration has emerged, and cloud dedicated lines have become the next hot demand for customer acquisition services; at the same time, the demand for customer acquisition services continues to rise, becoming one of the important growth points for future revenue, but the demand for customer acquisition dedicated lines has become more and more complex: the demand for large-granularity services is growing, high-level large-granularity service customers require higher service quality, and there are more and more personalized demands such as latency and ultra-long packets. With so many demands and many access technologies, network deployment has brought some difficulties. How to adopt a suitable method to solve the end access of customer acquisition services and enable rapid activation has become the focus of operators.

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1. Business characteristics

Cloud private lines and customer service requirements are diverse, and different services have different functional and performance requirements for access and bearer. Therefore, different access and bearer solutions need to be provided for different service types, functions, and performance. In actual applications, there are many factors that affect the formulation of solutions, mainly in three dimensions: service type, bandwidth requirements, and service level. Different access technologies and networking solutions are required for different combinations of cloud private lines and customer service private lines.

1.1 Business Type

Cloud dedicated line and customer dedicated line services are generally divided into:

1. Data dedicated line service: using transmission and other circuit resources to provide end-to-end direct circuits between the headquarters and branches, and between the headquarters and the cloud network for group customers, to meet the needs of internal communication of customers. Whether the client uses TDM ports or FE ports, as long as the end-to-end transmission is carried out in a physically isolated manner, it belongs to the dedicated line circuit leasing service.
2. Voice dedicated line: It can provide high-quality voice and data access services to group customers. It is a service that uses advanced data compression, IP packaging and channel statistical time division multiplexing technology to transmit voice.
3. Internet dedicated line: Some large customers use dedicated lines such as E1, 155M optical ports or FE connections to connect to the Internet in an exclusive bandwidth manner, access Internet resources or provide data transmission services for other data services. They mainly use SR to facilitate services, and do not require authentication by the metropolitan area network BRAS. They mainly include Internet cafes, large and medium-sized enterprises, etc.

1.2 Bandwidth Requirements

Bandwidth is one of the important features of cloud private lines and customer-integrated services. The same type of service may have different transmission and carrying solutions due to different bandwidth requirements. Generally speaking, higher-level customers have higher bandwidth requirements, but this is not necessarily a strict correspondence. The bandwidth requirements corresponding to service types are generally shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Customer bandwidth demand factor table

1.3 Service Level

Generally, the service levels of cloud dedicated lines and customer dedicated lines are divided into AAA, AA, A, and ordinary. Different service assurance levels are determined according to the importance of the services applied by customers, and differentiated networking solutions are provided. Service assurance is achieved through network protection. Currently, network protection mainly includes physical dual routing, logical dual routing, and equipment with protection functions. In actual engineering applications, different network protection solutions and different technologies are selected according to the service assurance level.

2 Access Technology

2.1 Current situation and existing problems

There are currently a variety of technologies used for customer access, and different technologies have different usage scenarios.

1. For important customer-facing dedicated line services, PTN or miniaturized access PTN, SDH/MSTP technology is mainly used. For ordinary customer-facing services, PON and MSAP technologies can be considered.
2. For large-granularity services, WDM/OTN access is preferred, and bare fiber access can also be used when there are no relevant resources.
3. Microwaves can be used in scenarios where optical cable resources cannot be deployed.

So many access technologies are suitable for different application scenarios, which leads to many problems in practical applications.

1. In the selection of technical solutions, it is necessary to select the appropriate access technology based on comprehensive factors such as interface requirements and service quality requirements.
2. During the construction process, procurement and installation can only be carried out after the contract is finalized. The construction period is long and may affect the opening of services.
3. In terms of network organization, since the dedicated customer acquisition line needs to cross multiple layers of networks and multiple levels, the process of docking and joint debugging takes a long time.
4. In terms of maintenance and management, due to the wide variety of products, multiple network management systems need to be configured, and end-to-end management cannot be achieved, which brings difficulties to maintenance and fault location.
5. In terms of basic resource usage, multiple sets of access equipment may be deployed in an access room to adapt to different business needs, resulting in the occupation of multiple cabinet locations, which brings difficulties to management.

In short, the current multiple access technologies have brought many inconveniences in practical applications. There is an urgent need for a simple and effective integrated access technology to uniformly complete the access of multiple services and to achieve end-to-end monitoring and management technology to meet the complex and diverse needs of customer acquisition services.

2.2 New CPE/HUB-OTN Technologies

CPE/HUB-OTN is a technology that integrates access to multiple services and is used to uniformly carry various types of customer services. CPE/HUB-OTN is a general term for two types of equipment: CPE-OTN and HUB-OTN. The capacity of CPE-OTN equipment is relatively small, and it only meets the needs of accessing one customer. It is generally placed in the user's computer room. The capacity of HUB-OTN equipment is large, and it is used to converge multiple CPE-OTN equipment accesses. It is generally placed in the operator's own computer room, but it can also be placed in the user's computer room when the user demand is large.

CPE/HUB-OTN has the following features.

1. Interface: Supports Ethernet interfaces such as FE, GE, and 10GE, TDM interfaces such as 2Mbit/s, 155Mbit/s, and 622Mbit/s, and OTN interfaces such as ODUk.
2. Cross-connect/switching capability: supports packet, VC, and ODUk, etc.
3. Protection: It has certain protection capabilities and supports 1+1, etc.
4. General requirements: box-type structure, support AC/DC power supply.
5. Operation and maintenance and activation: Supports SDN, which can achieve end-to-end operation and maintenance, rapid scheduling and activation.
6. Remote maintenance: supports power-on and leave, no configuration or adjustment required, last words before death, manageable and controllable, etc.

This technology has large-capacity bandwidth and diversified interfaces, which can meet the access of various services; it supports various crossovers or exchanges to meet the convergence or forwarding of multiple types of services; it uses the ODUk frame structure as the basis, which can meet the end-to-end continuity monitoring management requirements and protection capabilities, and can meet the requirements of strict isolation of services at the physical layer; the compact box type and diversified power supply methods make it easy to deploy and suitable for a variety of scenarios. In short, the new equipment has the above characteristics, making it the first choice for comprehensive access to cloud dedicated lines and customer services in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the network deployment and application of this equipment.

3. CPE/HUB-OTN Networking Practice

CPE/HUB-OTN is located at the end of the network. Various customer services are uniformly accessed by CPE/HUB-OTN. According to the characteristics of the services, packet-based services are connected to PTN, and TDM and OTN services are connected to OTN.

3.1 CPE/HUB-OTN Network Solution

In actual network deployment, two different networking modes are considered according to the distribution characteristics of customer acquisition services.

3.1.1 Mode 1: Deployment of HUB-OTN

Using HUB-OTN can first converge services and reduce the number of ports and connections that need to be managed. The HUB to CPE is networked by the same manufacturer, and management information is uniformly proxied by the HUB. HUB-OTN can choose to connect via a large high-speed port. This method is suitable for areas where customer access services are relatively concentrated. The network diagram is shown in Figure 1.

3.1.2 Mode 2: CPE-OTN directly connected to the upper layer network

For remote areas with low demand for customer service access, in order to improve cost-effectiveness, CPE-OTN can be used to directly connect to the upper network to reduce HUB-OTN investment and switching. The network diagram is shown in Figure 2.

3.2 Regional division

From the above networking, it can be seen that in order to better adapt to the needs of rapid service activation, the scope of the customer service that needs to be accessed can be divided into multiple non-overlapping areas based on the distribution of customer services and the existing comprehensive service access areas and regional characteristics. Each area is classified and located to determine whether to use HUB-OTN. For areas that clearly use HUB-OTN, unified planning, deployment and construction can be carried out in advance to ensure the rapid activation of subsequent services.

Regional planning can be based on the current integrated business area micro-grid architecture, and adjacent micro-grids can be organized into a relatively independent area. The coverage of each area should not overlap or be missed, and access areas can be gridded to ensure clear business ownership, clear management, and orderly access. This will ensure the uniqueness and certainty of business access and facilitate subsequent maintenance and management.

3.3 Interconnection

Based on OTN, the same manufacturer uses OTUk interface interconnection, and different manufacturers use IrDI interface interconnection, which can achieve end-to-end maintenance and management across the network. In order to achieve end-to-end management and maintenance, in actual network deployment, the appropriate networking solution should be selected in combination with the existing large network situation.

3.3.1 Extension from the same manufacturer

When the CPE/UNB-OTN and the large network OTN at the end access are from the same manufacturer, the interconnection networking solution is connected as shown in Figure 3.

In this scenario, the OTUk interface is directly extended to the terminal CPE to ensure that ODUk reaches the terminal CPE directly, making configuration, management, and activation simpler when networking with the same manufacturer.

3.3.2 Intercommunication between different manufacturers

When the CPE/UNB-OTN and the large network OTN at the end access are from different manufacturers, an end-to-end solution can be implemented across manufacturers. Different manufacturers are connected through the IrDI interface. The networking solution is shown in Figure 4.

In this scenario, the standardized IrDI interface is used to transmit network management information across manufacturers, ensuring end-to-end network management information interoperability and achieving end-to-end maintenance and management functions, greatly improving operation and maintenance capabilities.

4. Conclusion

The scenarios for customer access are very complex and the requirements vary greatly. The above solutions and practices are deployment discussions based on the currently envisioned equipment capabilities. In actual applications, it is necessary to continuously explore and improve the solutions based on business needs and technological advances. It is hoped that the above analysis can provide ideas and references for future CPE/HUB-OTN deployment.

[This article is an original article by 51CTO columnist "Mobile Labs". Please contact the original author for reprinting.]

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