Physical Connections Module

The physical connections module registers basic actions, advanced actions and views that allow the creation of physical connections (optical, wireless, electrical and power-related) using the Object Options Panel. In this chapter the following topics will be addressed:

• Physical Connections
• Basic Actions
  • Delete Physical Container
  • Delete Physical Link
• Advanced Actions
  • Manage Port Mirroring
  • Port Summary
  • Edit Connections
  • Connect Using a Link
  • Connect Using a Container
• Views

Physical Connections

The Physical Connections toolkit is tightly integrated to the Physical Connections module. With Kuwaiba you can create physical layer connections using cables, fiber optics or radio links very easily, navigate through the connections and inspect the resources in use.

Before presenting the tools provided by the application, let’s first clarify and introduce some concepts. This module deals solely with L1 topologies. It’s only about cables, ports, etc. The data model provides four types of entities to represent physical layer elements:

• Links: These are all physical connections that connect two ports. In the current data model, there are three types of connections: ElectricalLink (for electrical connections like coaxial, twisted pairs and the like), OpticalLink (for fiber optics), RadioLink (for radio links -Microwave links, mostly-) and PowerLink (for electrical power connections AC/DC). You can create new types by adding subclasses to the abstract class GenericPhysicalLink Figure 1. See Data Model Manager.

Figure 1. Links in data model

• Containers: All objects that can be used to contain, wrap and protect links (understanding Link as defined above). There are two types of containers: WireContainer (used to contain all kind of cables -wires and fibers-, like pipes, conduits, ditches, etc) and WirelessContainer (used to contain radio channels or carriers). You can create new types by adding subclasses to the abstract class GenericPhysicalContainer Figure 2.

Figure 2. Containers in data model

• Nodes: These objects are endpoints to Containers. In the default data model you will find classes like: Tower, Facility, Shelter, Building, Floor and Room, but in general, any inventory object can be a Node Figure 3.

Note: In versions prior to 1.5, only subclasses of GenericPhysicalNode could be nodes.

Figure 3. Nodes in data model

• Endpoints: These objects are endpoints to Links. In practice, they’re always some kind of Port (in the data model context, this means all subclasses of GenericPort) Figure 4.

Figure 4. Endpoints in data model

In summary, you can only connect Nodes using Containers and Endpoints using Links. To create new connections, open the Object View of an element and try to connect the desired nodes. For example, Figure 5 shows two nodes objects of the class Manhole and a container object of the class WireContainer.

Figure 5. Manholes connected by a pipe

On the left side of Figure 6 shows the interior of the pipe from Figure 5 that contains containers and links where the orange containers are tube bundle, the red containers the tubes and inside the tubes the cables. The right side of Figure 6 shows an enlarged view of the cable that contains the loose tubes that in turn contain the fibers.

Figure 6. Pipe

Figure 5 and Figure 6 show three of the four elements of a physical connection.

There are three options to create physical connections in the inventory:

• Outside Plant module
• Connectivity Manager module
• Using the basic actions, advanced actions and views that allow the creation of physical connections (optical, electrical and power-related) using the Object Options Panel.

For this example, the tools enabled by this module will be used. Using the navigation module, a city and two manholes are created, which will store splice box each.

Figure 7. New city

Using the object view the pipe will be created between the two manholes using the connect tool .

Figure 8. New pipe

Select the pipe in the object view, using the object options panel create a tube bundle as a special child, open the special children explorer and create the necessary containers and fibers Figure 9.

Figure 9. New pipe special children

Select the pipe in the object view and use the edit connections action in the object options panel to connect fibers to endpoints Figure 10.

Figure 10. Connecting endpoints

Using the navigation module will mirror the ports in the splice box Figure 11 using the manage port mirroring action.

Figure 11. Mirroring

Using the splice box view we can see the connected fibers Figure 12

Figure 12. Splice box view

To view more details of the connection, select one of the splice box ports in the navigation module and open the physical path view Figure 13.

Figure 13. Physical path view

Once the port connections are made, we have all the elements of a physical connection: the links (OpticalLinks), containers (WireContainers -pipes, tube bundle, tubes, cables, loose tubes-), the endpoints (OpticalPorts) and the nodes (Manholes).

Basic Actions

Delete Physical Container

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericPhysicalContainer

A physical container from the perspective of an FTTH network could be an indoor, outdoor or drop cable, in the Data Model Manager Figure 14 it is represented as a WireContainer, for a wireless network a WirelessContainer contains a set of radio links.

Figure 14. Subclasses GenericPhysicalContainer

The delete physical containers action is only available for subclass instances of GenericPhysicalContainer as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15. Delete physical container action

To delete a physical container click on the action and click on the OK button Figure 16.

Figure 16. Delete physical container

Delete Physical Link

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericPhysicalLink

A physical link from an FTTH perspective is the fiber in the Data Model Manager is represented by the OpticalLink class Figure 17, for wireless networks the RadioLink class is used.

Figure 17. Subclasses GenericPhysicalLink

The delete physical link action is only available for subclass instances of GenericPhysicalLink as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Delete physical link action

To delete a physical link click on the action and click on the OK button Figure 19.

Figure 19. Delete physical link

Advanced Actions

Manage Port Mirroring

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericPort, GenericDistributionFrame, GenericSplicingDevice, Antenna

Mirroring in Kuwaiba means creating mirror or mirrorMultiple relationships between ports, below are some uses of this action for different classes:

• When we execute this action from one of the subclasses of GenericPort Figure 20 only a mirror or mirrorMultiple relationship will be created from one port to another port.

Figure 20. Subclasses GenericPort

Figure 21 shows the flow to mirror an OpticalPort

Figure 21. Manage port mirroring OpticalPort

1. Select the type of single mirror or multiple mirror.
2. Select the other port.
3. Once the other port is selected it should appear in the mirrors.
4. Used to remove the mirror.

• When we execute this action from one of the subclasses of GenericDistributionFrame Figure 22 create mirror or mirrorMultiple relationships.

Figure 22. Subclasses GenericDistributionFrame

Figure 23 shows the flow to mirror an ODF

Figure 23. Manage port mirroring ODF

1. Select the type of mirror.
2. Drag a port.
3. Drop on source ports.
4. Drag other port and drop on target ports.
5. Select a source port.
6. Select a target port.
7. Click on existing mirror Figure 24.
8. Automatic mirror matching Figure 25.

Figure 24. Existing mirrors ODF

Figure 25. Automatic mirror matching ODF

Port Summary

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericCommunicationsElement, GenericDistributionFrame, GenericSplicingDevice

Shows how the ports are connected within the device, the IP address and assigned services if they exist. Figure 26 shows the flow to execute the action.

Figure 26. Port summary ONT

1. Search for an OpticalLineTerminal or any of the classes in which this action can be applied.
2. Click on the Port Summary action.
3. Physical Path ONT port Figure 27.
4. Object dashboard ONT port service Figure 28.

Figure 27. Physical path ONT port

Figure 28. Object dashboard ONT port service

Edit Connections

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericPhysicalConnection Figure 29

Figure 29. Subclasses GenericPhysicalConnection

To execute the action, look for an object that is a subclass GenericPhysicalConnection select it and click on the action Edit Connections Figure 30.

Figure 30. Edit connections action

A window appears, the flow to edit a connection is shown in Figure 31.

Figure 31. Edit connections window

1. Select the endpoint A.
2. Select a link.
3. Select the endpoint B.
4. Click on the button Connect Selected Endpoints to the link.
5. Disconnect only the endpoint A of the link.
6. Disconnect only the endpoint B of the link.
7. Disconnect the endpoint A and the endpoint B of the link.

Connect Using a Link

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericPort Figure 32.

Figure 32. Subclasses GenericPort

To execute the action, look for an object that is a subclass GenericPort select it and click on the action Connect to... Figure 33.

Figure 33. Connect using link action

In this example we will connect the port of an ODF with a port of an OLT, for this we must select the target port Figure 34.

Figure 34. Connect using link new window

Figure 35 shows the steps to find the OLT port to connect.

Figure 35. Select connection target port window

Once the target port is selected, we use the suggested connection name and click on the Connect button.

Figure 36. Connect using link window

1. Suggested connection name.

Figure 37 shows the new link using the physical path view for the ODF port.

Figure 37. New link in physical path

Connect Using a Container

Applies to objects of class or subclass GenericLocation Figure 38, GenericDistributionFrame or GenericSplicingDevice

Figure 38. Subclasses GenericLocation

To execute the action, look for an object that is a subclass GenericLocation, GenericDistributionFrame orGenericSplicingDevice select it and click on the action Connect to... Figure 39.

Figure 39. Connect using container action

1. Select an object.
2. Click on the Connect to... action.
3. Select connection type.
4. Optional select a template for the connection.
5. Select the other end of the connection.
6. Suggested connection name.
7. Click on the Connect button that will create the connection and open the window in Figure 40.

Figure 40. Edit connections new container window

If you click on the OK button, the window to edit connections will open Figure 41.

Figure 41. New container in edit connection window

Views

All views registered by this module were detailed in the navigation module:

• Object View
• Rack View
• Fiber Splitter View
• Splice Box View
• Physical Path View
• Physical Tree View