ARCHITECTURE AND METHOD FOR MANAGING A FLEXIBLE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

摘要

The present invention discloses an architecture and method for establishingone or more variable bandwidth communications channels that providestelecommunication customers with immediate setup of an arbitrary bandwidthconnection upon demand. A centrally disposed access server (40) controls allof the switches (19) that form the traffic-bearing network (15) and forms asingle portal through which all connection requests are made. Requests fromusers (12) and network applications are interpreted, validated, translated,and seamlessly delivered to the DXCs by the access server (40). The accessserver (40) comprises a packet switched data network (42), a processor (44),and several workstations (46, 48) for performing a plurality of customer andnetwork related functions. The access server (40) functions as anintermediatory between a traffic-bearing network (15) and one or more networksubsystems (20, 25) which are responsible for allocating the connection basedon the customer's request.