ACHIEVING CARRIER CLASS AVAILABILITY IN COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT BY MANAGING THE POWER CHAIN

摘要

The methods that have made it possible for communications equipment suppliers to achieve "five nines" will also make it possible to achieve "six nines" or "carrier-class availability" by using standardized modular power management and environmental monitoring architectures. Methodologies for managing all parts of a line card's environmental and power supply conditions will enable future systems to meet these requirements. Using programmable analog solutions that can manage faults leads to new approaches that limit failures to individual line cards. In a redundant architecture, the cards can be safely disabled and then, using hot-swap features, the cards can be replaced so that system downtime is avoided. Actively controlling DC output voltage levels to within +-0.2% under light or full load to meet stringent tolerance requirements of high performance components further extends reliable operation and margining supplies tests system performance goals. These devices provide a standardized method to provide the basic functions of detection, response and prediction as well as fault recording for analysis of failures to reduce or eliminate them in the future. While components and line cards may fail, the system can be ultra-reliable, redundant and ultra-available withstanding the toughest environments in the network.