Luxar Fiber Resource Management and Health Platform

Background

Today’ s internet traffic depends unprecedentedly on a smooth and stable optic fiber network, Almost all internet providers, major business employ optic fiber as method of data transmission, both in commercial data center, point to point application and in end user PON network. As of 2014, the connected Fiber to Home FTTH/O port of United States has covered more than 82 million of the population of United States (Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). According to an earlier report, North American fiber-to-the-home service gained1.04 million new customers in the six months ending September 2013 and 1.7 million new customers starting January 2013, which is also record setting. These sums up to about 25 million families, or one quarter of the total of the country, now have fiber available.

Fig 1. Trend for Homes Connected to Fiber, Sep 2013 (Source: Broadband Communities Magazine)

Nevertheless，Unexpected optical fiber cut or damage can cause major data traffic block, hence greatly affect normal access to the Internet. Although many efforts have been put to ensure maximum fiber network availability, fiber cuts and damages of various extents causes huge loss on both economic and social resources. In the year of 2014, more than 2000 times of optic fiber damage have been recorded in the United States. Reasons of fiber damage include construction, extreme weather, traffic accidents (including air crashes) and animals.

Fast and real-time monitoring

of the fiber cable can help to reduce the time required to respond to data traffic interruption and to minimize the loss caused by Internet service outage. Therefore, newer fiber monitoring technology is vital for meeting the needs of the market and protecting the data from loss.

Current Optic Fiber Monitoring Products and Protocols

Most of current solution providers in today’s market base their fiber monitoring and management system on Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR). This technology employs Rayleigh scattering and Fresnel Reflection to analyze the light loss by measuring the time and intensity of the light reflected in a specific area of an optical fiber. Upon startup, the OTDR device emits a short, intense power laser pulse into the optical fiber, then the backscatter and reflection of light are measured and calculated as a function of time, presented as scattering X/Y axis curve (dB vs Time). Based on the time that pulse travels in the fiber, tester is able to determine the location of the optical fiber break, bends, or splice losses to target the faulty spots for repair. OTDR can measure gradual and sudden degradation of fiber by comparison the reflection to those measure by previous tests, therefore, it has been extensively used to measure overall fiber loss, splice loss (fusion and mechanic) during installation, construction and restoration operations. It is also used to measure the reflectance of optical return loss of connectors and mechanical splices to keep these losses down.

Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform OTDR limitations There are several significant shortcomings for current OTDR based devices. Resolution Because the OTDR measurement is based on the bandwidth and frequency of the pulse, the intensiveness of the pulse is directly associated with the time for the reflection, as well as the shortest distance that the OTDR can identify between any two-reflection points, i.e. the resolution. Because the photo detector of the OTDR will need to detect signals millions of times weaker than the signal sent out of the photo diode, increased dynamic range would require pulses with higher width, therefore causing increased distance of minimum detectable resolution. In long haul fiber cables with high insertion loss, this is a very significant difficulty for field fiber restoration personnel to precisely locate the faulty location for repair. Limited resolution also makes it very hard to use in a LAN or building environment where cables are usually only a few hundred meters long. The OTDR has a great deal of difficulty resolving features in the short cables of a LAN and is likely to show "ghosts" from reflections at connectors, more often than not simply confusing the user. Dead Zones During an OTDR measurement, users will find various different sections are the “blind spots” that no measurements can be made. This is because dead zones are created by the Fresnel reflection, causing overload of the photo detector and subsequent excessive time required for recovery. The connector on the OTDR itself is always a dead zone equivalent of 50 meters to one kilometer (170 to 3280 feet) to recover fully, depending on the OTDR design, wavelength and magnitude of the reflection. For this reason, most current OTDR always use a long launch cable, which allows the OTDR to settle down after the initial pulse and provides a reference cable for testing the first connector on the cable. Live fiber monitoring OTDR device often need to occupy the optical fiber resource exclusively, while the physical connection of an OTDR must be present during the test process, and the user then reset the OTDR settings for the test on that specific cable. Typical OTDR test can take several minutes or longer, during which time no data can be transmitted even if there are no damages on the physical optical cable. This fiber during the test period is then a ”dark fiber”.

The

availability of the fiber (time duration that an optic network will not suffer from data transmission problems) depends greatly on the quickness that the trouble areas are identified and addressed.

Considering the time from

the trouble spot occurs to being responded by service personnel, while Light loss is especially important in fiber optic cables because it can interfere with the transmission of data. This limitation has greatly reduced the overall efficiency of the optical fiber network. As today’s Internet traffic availability is vital to all aspects of people’s economic, social, and daily lives, the tolerance of network unavailability has become minimum. Therefore, new approaches enabling continuous live fiber monitoring has become highly desired. PC-link and expandability Although some OTDR systems have PC-linking capabilities by connecting to the optical fiber through a DWDM device, the signal generated by the OTDR uses its exclusive band and is multiplexed into the fiber together with other data traffic. Although in some systems with PC link capability, the data recorded during the test can be downloaded and analyzed, the handheld independent chassis still makes it very inconvenient to expand, change or store all propose testing features for future analysis. Also, adding new testing features to OTDR device can also be very difficult due to the fact that this can only be achieved by upgrading the firmware of the device.

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Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform

Luxar’ s Proprietary Co-related Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (COTDR) Co-related Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (COTDR)，is the patented technology developed independently by Luxar Tech in association with OTDR technology. Instead of employing one single optical pulse, COTDR uses coherent low power digital coded laser signal to continuously generated and injected into the optical link path, that incorporates not only low numbers of pulses, but vast numbers of continuous, uninterrupted coded pulses. Reflected signals collected by optical receiver is decoded and calculated through Luxar’s proprietary algorithm obtain information such as distance of the optical link path, attenuation, and precise connector and/or fault locations. Because COTDR employs the coded signal rather than a direct optical pulse, the calculated distance of the reflection is independent to the width of the pulse, thus empowers the system to accurately locate the position of any reflection higher than preset threshold value, with a resolution of up to 1 meter, regardless of the total length of the test fiber. Also, due to the extremely low COTDR power that the Luxar Fiber Monitoring System is based, the recovery time of the photo detector needed by Luxar Fiber Monitoring System has become negligible, therefore there is no dead zone for the whole test length when using the Luxar FMS.

Parameters

OTDR

COTDR

Lunching Peak Power

High

Low

Resolution

Dynamic range dependent

1 meter

Dead zone

Dynamic range dependent

None

Live fiber monitoring

May become significant with

Negligible

Dynamic Range Data Interference

High high dynamic range

Medium

Fig 2. OTDR vs. COTDR

The Luxar Tech LTC 3030 Fiber Monitoring System is the innovative device based on the COTDR technology developed by Luxar Tech Inc. This system is plug and play and capable of performing real-time monitoring for live fibers up to 100km with a constant resolution of one meter. Its multi wavelength elasticity enables the LTC3030 to be implemented into the connectivity link path as either in band or out band monitor. The LTC3030 generates the initial characterized reflections (referred to as fingerprint) after first scan and subsequently detects any changes due to manual or unexpected fiber changes without involvement of manual reading and judgment by human.

Fig 3. Connection Paradigm of Luxar FMS

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Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform Each LTC3030 support 8 channels. It can be connected to either end of the optical fiber and monitor multiple link paths simultaneously. The Luxar FMS LTC3030 can be applied flexibly into point to point networks, PON networks and ring networks and provide various measurement parameters including reflections for connection, fiber cut, optical signal attenuation and characteristics analysis, and further, the LTC3030 can integrate GIS system, showing not only the distance of the fault point, but the location precisely in accordance to the physical location in a map on display. Unlike traditional OTDR application, while it is only used when fiber breakage happens, Luxar LTC3030 can detect minor to medium fiber change. The working scheme for traditional OTDR trouble shooting is as following: Service breakage is reported by user or service interruption was detected by the system, and then the data transmission administrator contact service team member to prepare OTDR test, and the service team member connects the OTDR to the pluggable end of the fiber and start locating the fault point, getting a range of possible fault location and repeat the process to locate the most likely point of breakage which is usually between 10-200 meters of range, significantly delaying the time that the repair service can be on site for fiber restoration. With Luxar FMS, because the system monitors all possible changes on the fiber, it can give alarm for fault location with up to one-meter accuracy upon or even before occurrence of service interruption, effectively saving time for repair by over 60 percent.

Fig 4. Fiber Restoration Scheme: Traditional vs. Luxar FMS

One prominent advantage of Luxar FMS is that FMS can monitor live fiber with data traffic with both in-band and out-band wavelengths, therefore can be implemented into connectivity system and monitor the fiber twenty-four by seven continuously. When connected to the system using out-band wavelength, Luxar FMS works at 1625nm band. The 1625nm wavelength is suitable to monitor long haul fiber operated at 1550nm band. The loss at 1625nm is similar to that at 1550, which enables the FMS to effectively measure the full fiber length. Therefore, the Luxar FMS can be coupled into the through a wavelength division multiplexing device to monitor live fiber with working signals. Moreover, 1625nm band is more sensitive to fiber bend so that fiber problems can be detected early before service interruption happens.

Operation of the Luxar LTC3030 is based on a centralized server that connects to all customers’ fiber channels, making it convenient to engage and manage fiber resources at higher efficiency. The dimension of the LTC3030 is standard one rack unit (19 inches wide by 2.5 inches height), which makes it very convenient and fast to be deployed into any existing fiber link paths. The LTC3030 come with independent IP channel and is easily managed through standard EMS software or web interface.

The systematic link of the optical fiber physical link monitor system can be seen in the left side of the following figure The test signals generated by the sea OTDR are marked into the fiber transmission link the FMS can directly contact the possible files in the feedback fiber and locate the file to location precisely. Because the band that the FMS uses

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Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform does not interfere with data transmission bands, the FMS can be easily connected to an existing Metro data transmission network through any DWDM system and start monitoring 24 by 7 seamlessly, with a total availability percentage of four nines or higher.

Luxar Comprehensive Fiber Management and Health Solution

Luxar Tech Inc continues to develop innovative solutions not only for real-time, fast responding fiber status monitoring, but also for preventive fiber monitoring and fiber resource management by implementing big data analysis and business intelligence into customized database of the clients, including fiber condition, climates change, geographic variation, biological influence and human related events such as construction, digging, traffic accidents. Luxar’ s business intelligence preventive monitoring compares these conditions to the ones in its database through long term accumulation and gives out preventive maintenance suggestions and alerts for replace fiber and/or change fiber link component in advance.

The Luxar Tech Fiber Resource Management System (Luxar FRMS) is a comprehensive solution for companies with urged request for sorting, classifying, tagging and recording all fiber resources. The FRMS starts from a map associated with the area that the client focuses on and user can input all existing fiber resources electronically (via file import). Alternatively, user can also scan all previous paper traced fiber information and transfer the resource management into the Luxar FRMS seamlessly. The mapped area will show a fiber route with all connections, conjunctions, branches and fiber routing information, as shown in figure 5. Clicking any connection point will display relevant information including equipment detail, live fiber ports, splicing information, connection box type, and geographic information. User is even able to attach an actual picture of surrounding information for specific connection box, such as a manhole or fiber post. User can also add any additional connection box or fiber routes on the map by directly drawing based on the information available. Upon update or restoration of fiber resources, user can manually update the resource information by adding or changing port information, fiber number and splicing condition, and such.

Fig 5 Screenshot of Luxar Fiber Resource Management System

The Luxar Fiber Health and Management Platform (FHMP) consists of three major components, the Web Access Control Panel incorporates user access with different levels of authority either to just view, run test, change system configuration or even alter fiber routes, all from web browser enabled user interface. Clients can assign different roles

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Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform to its personnel’ s with different functionality, enabling real-time fiber quality monitoring, on demand fiber test, fiber port assignment and log, fiber resource optimization and fiber routing advisory. All above actions can be recorded by system log, and standard reports can be generated based on user information, time duration, fiber specificity, and events and beyond. The comprehensive yet simplified control is fully backed up by the plane of Luxar FRMS and FMS.

The FMS’ s high resolution and dead zone free features ensure it as a optimal solution for service providers, infrastructure owners, and internet companies with high volumes of data traffic who need to maintain an effective fiber communication link path and make sure the fiber quality is under ongoing protection and surveillance. The GIS integrated map provides a best fitting of the fiber quality monitoring system, and the FMS itself can work independently as a component in existing optical transpiration network system, providing automatic alter of fault via System alert, email, SMS or cellphone app, based on the status information about the fiber status such as new, changed, miss and cleared. The system administrator and central server will receive an automatic report simultaneously as well. In addition, the FMS also provides automatic result storage, logging and export as viewable file (including CSV, Microsoft Excel or PDF) for fast remote fault analysis and problem solving.

With the Luxar FHMP, the FMS will be an active element in the FRMS framework, which provide incessant monitoring for fiber quality and active measurement for optical signal loss at user’ s request anytime. The FRMS plane, which sits in the central of the Luxar FHMP, fully implemented with FMS and user oriented web control, will support all user’ s full needs for a safe and secure fiber network with maximum availability. The FRMS involves both 24/7 live fiber monitoring, with GIS integration and precise Map based fault locating, Ad-hoc or scheduled test can scan the fiber on a regular basis, all data will be automatically recorded and stored, including minimum, maximum, average, current and threshold values for potential fault analysis reference. On demand test will allow privileged user to run test with specific parameters more precisely and gather information including fiber attenuation, possible reflection point and loss measurement. The FRMS constantly generates fingerprint of the whole monitored network and keep renewing the fingerprint either on-demand or by schedule. Combined with fingerprint generation and renew, as well as on-site environment change logging, the FRMS can detect both sudden and gradual cable changes, to follow up a long-term trend of possible cable deterioration and perform preventative monitoring and measuring. Upon fiber fault and similar events, FRMS record all statistics on all aspects of fiber and services associated with the particular fiber for the users to view the time, event and severity of the failure as they happen at the fist time. The statistics include customer fault distribution, customer availability percentage, remote transportation unit percentage, time to repair (TTR) distribution, and median TTR trend. The FRMS will also be able to collect information including history and restoration record on any optical test unit (OTUs) locally and remotely, and collect statistics of loss of availability against service level agreement (SLA), cable trend capture, proof provision, presentable test reports through various formats, and automated report generation / dispatch to ensure the essential data fiber health and strong in the long run.

Conclusion Luxar Tech strives to deliver a step-by-step approach to wholesome control for the quality of the fiber network. The FMS is a simple, fast and optimal solution for all fiber monitoring and alert usage in the network. The FMS unit itself can connect up to 8 channels for up to 100km network for each critical area of the whole network, and the centralized web based user control gives most flexibility and agility in terms of response to fiber faults. Through the centralized control panel included the FRMS, the Luxar FHMP brings full solution for fiber health and management, including real time fault monitoring and mapping, provision of new and existing test routes, schedule on demand and ad-hoc tests, and test reports generation. Integrated with GIS and FMS, the potential role that the Luxar FHMP can play to meet todays booming Internet traffic can be profoundly significant. With no hidden cost, nothing to install, The Luxar FHMP will provide a fast, easy, clean and all around solution to fit today’ s IT owners to ensure a best availability and data

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Luxar Fiber Management and Health Platform transportation security on the physical level.

About Luxar

Luxar develops industry-leading high speed and low latency solutions to network visibility and data center interconnect markets. Luxar network visibility product portfolio enables large enterprises, network service providers, and government entities to continuously monitor network traffic, improve network security, optimize network efficiency, and maximize monitoring tool investments. Luxar optical connectivity platform provides high-capacity data center interconnects with ease of use, low cost of ownership, and unparalleled low latency of optical transmission. Luxar Tech Inc also offers real-time fiber monitoring systems to drastically increase fiber optical network reliability. For more information, please contact us via [email protected].

Corporate Headquarter 42840 Christy St, Ste 101 Fremont, CA United States Tel: +1 855-50-Luxar Fax: +1 408-778-7195 www.luxartech.com

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