Cisco Cisco Broadband Access Center for Cable 4.0 Information Guide
Q&A
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Cisco Broadband Access Center 4.0
Overview
Q.
What is Cisco
®
Broadband Access Center (BAC)?
A.
Cisco BAC is a distributed, scalable application that helps enable the automated flow-through
provisioning of subscriber services and management of subscriber devices. Cisco BAC
provides a centralized and automated platform for service providers to control and configure
residential home gateways and the IP devices behind the gateways. Cisco BAC automatically
recognizes devices, assigns the appropriate class of service, dynamically creates and
generates device configuration files, and activates subscribers. Cisco BAC provides a single
device management platform to support multiple technologies including DOCSIS
®
,
PacketCable
™
, CableHome
™
, satellite, and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
Q.
Who should deploy Cisco Broadband Access Center 4.0?
A.
Cisco BAC 4.0 is designed for use by service providers seeking an automated means of
provisioning and managing subscriber devices supporting the CableLabs standards such as
DOCSIS, PacketCable, and CableHome. Cisco BAC can be easily extended to support other
devices as well. This version of BAC adds support for DOCSIS 3.0. Any service provider
planning to deploy and support IPv6 CPEs should use BAC 4.0.
Q.
How is Cisco Broadband Access Center 4.0 used?
A.
Cisco BAC 4.0 is used to replace manual provisioning processes by service providers seeking
a more scalable, automated, and higher performance device management platform. It
provides service providers an easy means to support newer versions of existing CableLabs
standards as well as to implement new technologies such as PacketCable voice and
CableHome for home network management.
Q.
What benefits can be expected from deploying Cisco Broadband Access Center 4.0?
A.
Cisco BAC 4.0 provides the following benefits:
●
Reliability: Cisco BAC provides high reliability and high availability supporting autonomous
headends, multiple distributed device provisioning engines (DPEs), each of which includes
its own data-caching repository, a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server, and a time-
of-day (ToD) server. During central server outages or communication problems, Cisco BAC
provides continued service to existing registered subscribers.
●
Scalability and performance: Cisco BAC can support millions of devices in distributed
deployments. Cisco BAC uses multiple distributed device management and caching
engines to balance processing of device requests. A single DPE can support as many as 1
million devices. These DPEs can be combined in groups to provide redundancy and load
sharing. Cisco BAC includes a central component called a regional distribution unit (RDU)
to handle service requests and modifications. A single RDU server in conjunction with the
appropriate number of DPE groups can support as many as 35 million devices with a
sustained rate of hundreds of thousands of new devices a day.
●
Easy integration with current systems: Cisco BAC integrates with existing service provider
systems, such as billing systems, operations support systems (OSSs), and other customer