US 9,319,758 B2 · Method and system for protection switching in ethernet passive optical networks

Abstract

One embodiment provides a system that performs protection switching in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON), which includes an optical line terminal (OLT) and at least one optical network unit (ONU). The system is configured with at least one redundant component for the OLT and/or ONUs, wherein the redundant component can be optical or electrical, and can be a port, line card or link. The system provides protection by detecting a failure, and switching automatically to the redundant components to reduce service disruption time. The protection switching comprises: preserving the existing configuration over the loss of at least one of a multiple-point control protocol (MPCP) message; an operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) message; and a signal on the physical layer. The system recovers from the failure without performing ONU discovery.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A method for performing protection switching in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON), comprising:

detecting a failure of a working line card at an optical line terminal (OLT);
and
switching to a redundant line card at the OLT to reduce service disruption time in response to detecting the failure, wherein preparation for the switching or the switching itself includes:
preserving existing registration information of optical network units (ONUs), registered with the working line card, at the redundant line card,
determining the redundant line card to use for protection switching based on a type of the failure, and
configuring the redundant line card to maintain the preserved existing registration information as static registration information to prevent the redundant line card from deregistering the ONUs.

3 more elements

A system configured to perform protection switching in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON), comprising:

a failure detection mechanism configured to detect a failure of a working line card at an optical line terminal (OLT);
and
a switching mechanism configured to switch to a redundant line card at the OLT to reduce service disruption time in response to the failure detection mechanism detecting the failure, wherein preparation for the switching or the switching itself includes:
determining the redundant line card to use for protection switching based on a type of the failure, and
preserving existing registration information of optical network units (ONUs), registered with the working line card, at the redundant line card;
and
a configuration mechanism configured to configure the redundant line card to maintain the preserved existing registration information as static registration information to prevent the redundant line card from deregistering the ONUs.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and system for protection switching in ethernet passive optical networks

Life of this patent

Method and system for protection switching in ethernet passive optical networks

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24