AUTOMATED PHYSICAL NETWORK SYSTEMS BASED ON ROBOTIC CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT OF FIBER OPTIC INTERCONNECTS

Abstract

Applications of robotics applied to patch-panels and cross-connects to improve operational processes within data centers and communications networks. Systems and architectures to perform frequent, accurate and low-cost reconfigurations and measurements of the physical network are described, thereby eliminating labor and time delays when completing routine tasks such physical network provisioning and reconfiguration.

Description

Claims

1. A system of operating a data center physical fiber-optic interconnect fabric, the system offering automated network services including some or all of: provisioning, verification, audit, troubleshooting, and/or authentification using distributed robotic fiber cross-connects, the system comprising: a multiplicity of optical fiber signal carrying cables; anda software control system that generating a sequence of movement and sensing based instructions communicated to multiple distributed robotic fiber cross-connects to perform robot services; andthe multiple distributed robotic fiber cross-connects having internal robots configured to plug and unplug signal carrying cables in accordance with a non-entangling algorithm to enable said robot services, the software control system further configured to confirm, authenticate and track robot services and input them into a data file for storage.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the robot services include one or more of: a fiber connection; a fiber disconnection; an optical power measurement; and/or an optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) trace.

3. A fiber-optic interconnection system comprising at least one interconnection facility operated by an interconnection system provider serving a multiplicity of users and with a multiplicity of cages therein, the fiber-optic interconnection system comprising: a fiber-optic interconnect fabric concurrently connecting the multiplicity of users residing within one or more of the multiplicity of cages, the fiber-optic interconnect fabric being controlled by a software management system, and including a plurality of optical fibers connected to one or more robotic fiber-optic patch-panels;a first cage of the multiplicity of cages for a first user of the fiber-optic interconnection system, the first cage having a terminated first subset of the plurality of optical fibers within; anda second cage of the multiplicity of cages for a second user of the fiber-optic interconnection system, the second cage having a terminated second subset of the plurality of optical fibers within; andthe software management system configured to, in response to receiving a request for an interconnection between the first user and the second user, activate the one or more robotic fiber-optic patch-panels to connect, disconnect, and/or move a pre-populated, low insertion loss, passive, contiguous optical fiber connection between the first user and the second user.

4. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein the contiguous optical fiber connection includes a first optical fiber of the first subset of the plurality of optical fibers, a second optical fiber of the second subset of the plurality of optical fibers, and the one or more robotic fiber-optic patch-panels connect the first and second optical fibers.

5. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein the software management system controls one or more optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDRs) to test insertion loss and verify proper operation of the contiguous optical fiber connection.

6. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein the one or more robotic fiber-optic patch-panels includes a fiber-optic connector end-face cleaning device that cleans a polished fiber endface of fiber-optic connector prior to making a connection.

7. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein a robot within the robotic fiber-optic patch-panels connects, disconnects, and/or moves the contiguous optical fiber connection without entangling other contiguous optical fiber connections, by routing the contiguous optical fiber connection according to a knots, braids and strands routing algorithm.

8. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein the software management system interconnects one or more visual fault finders at an NTM (Network Topology Manager) to illuminate an endcap of an optical fiber connector within a user cage and thereby properly identify the optical fiber connector.

9. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 6, wherein the fiber-optic connector end-face cleaning device creates a low insertion connection exhibiting less than 1 dB loss for optical signals passing through the connection.

10. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 7, wherein routing the contiguous optical fiber connection takes 0.5 to 5 minutes.

11. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 3, wherein the fiber-optic interconnect fabric also includes one or more photonic switches.

12. The fiber-optic interconnection system of claim 11, wherein the one or more photonic switches each add about 1 dB or more insertion loss and provide a photonic switching time of less than 1 second on a selected subset of interconnects.

13. A method of measuring one or more optical characteristics of a fiber-optic link with multiple serially arranged fiber-optic cable segments and connected end-to-end, within a dynamic fiber-optic interconnect fabric managed by an interconnect control system, with one of more of the fiber-optic cable segments connected to a multiplicity of user ports of an NTM (Network Topology Manager), the NTM containing a multiplicity of reconfigurable internal fiber-optic strands, each with a fixed connector at one end and a moveable connector at the other end, the moveable connector being movable between one or more test ports and the multiplicity of user ports, each port associated with an external receptacle and internal receptacle joined midway along a central axis, and further with an OTDR (Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer) connected to one or more external test ports on the NTM through fiber-optic test cables, with any internal fiber-optic connector able to be moved and inserted in an internal side of any port, the method comprising: instructing the interconnect control system to measure one or more optical characteristics of a particular fiber-optic link;determining a particular user port on the NTM to which the particular fiber-optic link is attached;creating an internal fiber-optic strand connection between the particular user port and an available test port; andlaunching OTDR pulses down the particular fiber-optic link in a first direction and measuring a backreflected light signal to generate a first set of data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising: processing the first set of data to determine insertion loss, back reflection and location of loss events along the particular fiber-optic link.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the particular fiber-optic link is a duplex fiber pair with transmit and receive fibers that terminates within a first customer cage at its first end.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising: connecting a tail cable through the NTM to receive the OTDR pulses returning from the first customer cage.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the particular fiber-optic link terminates within a second customer cage at its second end, with the NTM located along the particular fiber-optic link between the first end and the second end.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising: connecting transmit and receive lines at the first end of the fiber-optic link within the first customer cage; connecting transmit and receive lines of a second end of the fiber-optic link within the second customer cage; launching OTDR pulses down the fiber-optic link in the opposite direction and measuring the backreflected light signal to generate a second set of data; andprocessing the first set of data and the second set of data to determine insertion loss, back reflection, and location of loss events along the fiber-optic link.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising: connecting a tail cable through the NTM to receive the OTDR pulses returning from the second customer cage.

20. A method of visually identifying an end of a particular fiber-optic link with multiple fiber-optic cable segments connected end-to-end, within a dynamic fiber-optic interconnect fabric managed by an interconnect control system, with one of more of the fiber-optic cable segments connected to user ports of an NTM (Network Topology Manager), the NTM containing a multiplicity of reconfigurable internal fiber-optic strands with a fixed connectors at one end and a moveable connector at an other end, a movable connector being movable between one or more test ports and the user ports, each port associated with an external receptacle and internal receptacle joined midway along a central axis, and further with an OTDR (Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer) connected to one or more external test ports on the NTM through fiber-optic test cables, with any internal fiber-optic connectors able to be moved and inserted in an internal side of any port, the method comprising: instructing the interconnect control system to identify a particular fiber-optic link endpoint,connecting the particular fiber-optic link to a visual laser at an intermediate point connected to the NTM, such that a dust cap of the end of the particular fiber-optic link is illuminated.

21. An NTM (Network Topology Manager) pod comprising multiple NTMs preconfigured in a leaf-spine connection within a transportable container to provide any-to-any connectivity between pairs of external fibers.

22. The NTM pod of claim 21, wherein a fiber interface to the NTM Pod comprises one or more high fiber count optical fiber cables.

23. The NTM pod of claim 21, wherein a fiber interface to the NTM Pod comprises one or more fiber-optic patch-panels.

24. An integrated system containing two NTMs (Network Topology Managers) within a shared volume comprising a first volume and a second volume, the first volume having a first robot module that reconfigures a first set of connectors there-below, and the second volume having a second robot module that reconfigures a second set of connectors there-above, wherein the first robot module and the second robot module have robot arms that travel substantially parallel to one another, and the connectors are at ends of fibers that emanate from a central one-dimensional backbone of low friction through guides with the fibers therein.

25. The integrated system of claim 24, wherein the first set of connectors comprises about 500 to 1,000 connectors and the second set of connectors comprises about 500 to 1,000 connectors.

26. A batch-processing system of elements, including two partitions of interconnects, the two partitions of interconnects being a first partition of interconnects and a second partition of interconnects, the two partitions of interconnects in communication with a common optical fiber whose power in split into two separate first and second sets of fibers, wherein a first batch connected to first set of fibers requires the first partition of interconnects and a second batch connected to second set of fibers requires the second partition of interconnects, wherein the two partitions of interconnects can be transitioned therebetween by staging an inactive second partition of interconnects while the first partition of interconnects is active.

27. The batch-processing system of elements of claim 26, wherein the first partition of interconnects and the second partition of interconnects can be transitioned from their allocated to unallocated state in approximately (10 seconds) × (total number of interconnects).

28. A system including an SDN (Software-defined Networking) controller that subscribes to an average packet throughput for each port and provides a measure of utilization, wherein based on this data for each link, the SDN controller instructs an NTM (Network Topology Manager) system to reconfigure interconnects in a manner to combine traffic on links with less than a minimum utilization threshold onto a single link so that a combined utilization is less than or equal to a maximum utilization threshold to free up available ports; andtraffic is moved off of links with more than the maximum utilization threshold onto a new parallel link, wherein,after this process is completed, utilization of links lies between the minimum utilization threshold and the maximum utilization threshold.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the minimum utilization threshold is 40% and the maximum utilization threshold is 60%.