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Please ensure you have completed Element Manager Data Build Guide before you continue.

Element Manager Data Build Guide covered creating Locations, Sub-Locations, POP-Locations, POPs, Adding UTEL Equipment, Creating Test Configurations and Adding Routes.

 

Construction of a network in the FastLight GIS mostly mirrors the real world.

FastLight models aspects of multiple layers of network assets, and this section introduces essential concepts and gives an overview of how we construct the network in FastLight.

 

Network assets can be divided into four broad classes or layers:

1. Civil engineering assets such as buildings, cabinets, manholes, the ducts which run between them, and poles carrying aerial cable sections;

2. Weatherproofing assets such as waterproof joint closures and the cable jackets which protect transmission media;

3. Optoelectronic assets including cables, wires and the active and passive optical and electronic components carrying data; and

4. Configuration assets: individual data connections are created by splicing, connections, wiring and configuration within the optoelectronic layer.

Each one of these layers is a network: a map view shows that each layer consists of nodes connected by lines, in the same way that towns are connected by roads.

For the civil engineering layer, the nodes are buildings, cabinets and manholes whilst the lines are ducts or aerial sections.

For the optoelectronic layer, the lines are cables and the nodes are points where fibres from cables are interconnected or terminate on optoelectronic equipment.

In the configuration layer, a line is an individual fibre (or even an individual transmission wavelength in a WDM system) and the nodes are fibre interconnections and terminations on ports of optical or optoelectronic equipment.

 

Each layer in the list above "contains" the layer below it.

For example, a concrete duct may contain one or more cables, and a Footway Box may contain one or more waterproof joint closures.

As a result the first two layers are "hollow" - they consist of tubes (ducts in the civils layer and cable jackets in the weatherproofing layer) connecting enclosed spaces (respectively, manholes and joint closures).

The optoelectronic layer also "contains" the configuration layer, although in a more abstract way.

 

In the real world and for each network section

- the civil engineering asset must be in place before other network assets can be installed within it (For example, we need a duct terminating in a manhole before we can pull a cable into it).

- the optoelectronic assets (including fibres in cables) must be in place before fibres can be connected or spliced to create a connection.

Just for completeness, the "construction" of the weatherproofing network is less clear-cut. Cable jackets are created as the cable is manufactured. Joint closures which seal to the cable jacket are typically provided in two or more parts and are assembled around the equipment to be protected. That is, a joint closure is often not installed in advance of the equipment it contains, although it would almost always be specified in advance. The network of tubes in the weatherproofing layer (made up of cable jackets and joint closures) runs between "dry" nodes of the civil engineering network such as point-of-presence buildings and some well-protected types of street cabinet. A "dry" node can be defined as maintaining an environment within which optical connectors and electronic equipment may operate without additional weatherproofing. A "dry" node can be considered as a node both of the civil engineering network and of the weatherproofing network.

 

Construction of a network in FastLight GIS although mapping mostly mirrors the real world; it does have some additional requirements on the ordering of operations

 

- for any network section, the nodes of the civil engineering network must be created before any duct can be connected between them

- a duct start or finish may be at any one of the following nodes of the civil engineering layer:

oPOPs: Central Office, Street Cabinet POP, Data Centre

oCabinets

oManholes

- a duct must be created before a cable can be installed within it

oFastLight tracks duct capacity and utilization and will not allow a cable to be installed in a duct which has insufficient space

- two or more cables must be created with terminations at the same joint closure, POP or cabinet before fibers can be connected between them

oto see the connection editor screen

- an ONT may only be placed within a building

- All items that have specific rules can be found on the '?' button located on the top left of the map, more details in Map Navigation.