Systems, methods, and apparatuses for implementing persistent management agent (PMA) functions for the control and coordination of DPU and DSLAM components

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10785053-B2
Application number	US-201415505866-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 27, 2014
Priority date	Aug 27, 2014
Publication date	Sep 22, 2020
Grant date	Sep 22, 2020

Abstract

In accordance with embodiments disclosed herein, an exemplary system or computer implemented method for implementing Persistent Management Agent (PMA) functions for the control and coordination of DPU and DSLAM components may include, for example: a memory to store instructions for execution; one or more processors to execute the instructions; a virtualized module operating on virtualized computing infrastructure, in which the virtualized module is to provide a virtualized implementation of a plurality of functions associated with one or more remotely located Distribution Point Units (DPUs) and/or Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs), each of the one or more remotely located DPUs and/or DSLAMs having a plurality of broadband lines coupled thereto; in which the virtualized module is to further control Persistent Management Agent (PMA) functions and control coordination of the one or more remotely located DPUs and/or DSLAMs and the plurality of broadband lines coupled with the one or more remotely located DPUs and/or DSLAMs by virtualizing one or more functions of the one or more remotely located DPUs and/or DSLAMs to operate on the virtualized computing infrastructure; and a network interface to receive data and send control instructions for operation of the plurality of broadband lines to and from the one or more remotely located DPUs and/or DSLAMs. Other related embodiments are disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a memory to store instructions for execution;
one or more processors to execute the instructions;
a virtualized module operating on virtualized computing infrastructure, wherein the virtualized module is to provide a virtualized implementation of a plurality of functions associated with one or more remotely located Distribution Point Units (DPUs) or Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs), each of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs having a plurality of broadband lines coupled thereto;
wherein the virtualized module is to further control Persistent Management Agent (PMA) functions and control coordination of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs and the plurality of broadband lines coupled with the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs by virtualizing one or more functions of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs to operate on the virtualized computing infrastructure; and
a network interface to receive data and send control instructions for operation of the plurality of broadband lines to and from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized module is to further communicate bi-directionally with the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs.

3. The system of claim 1 :
wherein the virtualized module embodies a Virtualized Network Function (VNF) module to provide the virtualized implementation of the functions associated with one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs;
wherein the VNF module to operate on the virtualized computing infrastructure of the system comprises the VNF module to operate on a Virtualized Network Function Infrastructure (VNFI) using the processors and memory of this infrastructure; and
wherein the VNFI of the system virtualizes the functions of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs locally at the system.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the network interface to communicably link the system with the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs at least partially via a public or private Network; and
wherein the network interface comprises a control plane interface to communicably link the virtualized module of the system with the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the control plane interface of the system is to receive current operational data and current operating conditions for the plurality of broadband lines from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs via the public or private Internet.

6. The system of claim 5 , further comprising:
an analysis module to analyze the current operational data and the current operating conditions received from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs; and
an instruction module to generate control parameters to affect operation of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs based on the analysis of the current operational data and the current operating conditions received.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized module is to update the virtualized implementation of the plurality of functions of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs of the system according to the current operational data and the current operating conditions from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the virtualized module is updated by an Element Management Systems (EMS) or a Network Management Systems (NMS) communicably interfaced with the virtualized module of the system.

9. The system of claim 8 :
wherein the EMS or NMS sends commands to the virtualized module of the system causing the virtualized module to add or change services or settings on one or more of the plurality of lines as represented within the virtualized implementation at the system; and
wherein the system further comprises an analysis module to:
(i) analyze the services or settings via the PMA functions, and
(ii) control coordination of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs by issuing commands to the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs based on the analysis of the services or settings.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of functions include one or more of:
zero-touch Operations, Administration, and Management (OAM);
control and management of discontinuous operation,
control and management of Dynamic Rate Allocation (DRA),
derived telephony management,
Reverse Power Feed (RPF) management,
management of power consumption and low-power link states,
vectoring control and management,
calculation of vectoring coefficients,
layer 2 and above functionalities,
management of showtime-adaptive virtual noise, or
control parameter determination.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of functions comprise an integrated and coordinated determination over the plurality of broadband lines of one or more control parameters, the one or more control parameters each including one or more of:
Dynamic Rate Allocation (DRA), discontinuous operation control parameters, power control parameters, vectoring control parameters, baseline bit bit-loading tables, active bit-loading tables, per sub-carrier gains control parameters, or transmitter-initiated gain adjustment (TIGA) control parameters.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized module to control the PMA functions and coordination of the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs comprises:
the virtualized module abstracting vectoring control from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs, wherein the vectoring control abstracted from the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs is performed locally upon the virtualized computing infrastructure via the virtualized module; and
wherein the system further comprises the network interface to send control instructions for operation of the plurality of broadband lines to the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs, the control instructions specifying at least vectoring operations for the plurality of broadband lines.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized module further is to virtualize PMA functions abstracted from an Optical Line Termination (OLT) unit communicably linked with any one of the remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more remotely located DPUs embody a “Fiber To The distribution point” (“FTTdp”) unit which operates the plurality of broadband lines according to one any one of:
a Very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (“VDSL”) compliant communications standard;
a G.fast compliant communications standard;
a G.vdsl compliant communications standard;
an ITU-T G.9701 compliant communications standard; or
an ITU-T G.993.2 compliant communications standard.

15. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the network interface to send control instructions for operation of the plurality of broadband lines at any one of the remotely located DPUs according to any of G.fast, G.vdsl, VDSL, ITU-T G.9701, or ITU-T G.993.2 compliant communications standards.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized computing infrastructure is implemented by a cloud computing service which operates in a geographic location different than the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs, and wherein the cloud computing service is accessible to the one or more remotely located DPUs or DSLAMs over a public or private Internet.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtualized computing infrastructure is implemented within a datacenter which opera

Assignees

• Adaptive Spectrum & Signal Alignment Inc
• Assia Spe Llc

Inventors

• Kerpez Kenneth J

Classifications

• H04L41/40

  using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities · CPC title

• H04L12/2878 Primary

  Access multiplexer, e.g. DSLAM (generic distributed time multiplexers, e.g. TDM/TDMA H04J3/1694) · CPC title

• H04L41/046 Primary

  comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor · CPC title

• H04L41/32

  Specific management aspects for broadband networks · CPC title

• H04L41/0896

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title