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US 2003/0215232 A1Published application
Intelligent optical network element
AssigneeLightmaze AG
InventorsElke Jahn, Niraj Agrawal
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AssigneeLightmaze AG
InventorsElke Jahn, Niraj Agrawal
Estimating the term…
The invention relates to an intelligent network element for optical networks, comprising: at least one back-plane with a plurality of electrical transmission lines running across the back-plane and a plurality of electrical terminals connected to the transmission lines; a plurality of line-card slices having electrical terminals, each line-card slice being attached to the back-plane directly or in the form of a plug-in module such, that the electrical terminals of the line-card slice are electrically connected to selected ones of the terminals of the back-plane, with at least one of the line-card slices comprising at least one optical receiver for receiving of optical signals from the network and at least one opto-electrical converter integrated in or optically connected to the optical receiver with electrical terminals, and at least one of the line-card slices comprising at least one optical transmitter for transmitting of optical signals to the network and at least one electro-optical converter integrated in or optically connected to the optical transmitter with electrical terminals; various or all of the said electrical terminals are implemented in form of switch terminals that provide selected and reconfigurable electrical interconnections among various of the at least one receiver, transmitter and/or converter.
Intelligent network element (1) for optical networks, comprising:
Network element according to 4, characterised in that the line-card slices (10, 20) and the at least one cross-connect (40) are distributed on the back-plane (2) in such a way, that each cross-connect is electrically sandwiched between a predetermined number of the selected first and second of the line-card slices (10, 20).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that each line-card slice (10, 20) comprises both, one optical transmitter (21, 21′) and one optical receiver (11, 11′) with the corresponding converters (12, 12′, 22, 22′).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element (1) is a Dense-Wavelength-Division-Multiplexed network element and comprises at least one filter-unit for transforming of the optical multi-wavelength signals into individual wavelength channel signals and vice versa, whereby the filter-unit is disposed in at least one optical path between an optical terminal of the network element and a receiver (11, 11′) or transmitter (21, 21′) of a line-card slice (10, 20).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that at least one line-card chassis for plugging in of a single or a group of line-card slices (10, 20) is attached to the back-plane (2).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that at least one filter-card chassis for plugging in of a single or a group of filter-cards is attached to the back-plane (2).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that a supervisory system is provided.
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element comprises at least one bus card (34), especially a single or redundant internal bus cards, attached to the back-plane (2).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element comprises a single back-plane (2).
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element comprises single or redundant power supplies (33) attached to the back-plane.
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element is adapted to provide device or card protection or both in optical networks.
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the network element is adapted to be locally or remotely managed by providing an SNMP agent or other software agent interfaces.
Network element according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that is provided an optical amplifier (52) capable of amplifying the received and transmitted single or multi-wavelength signals attached to the back-plane (2) directly or in the form of plug-in module such that it can be managed under the intelligence of software control.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.