Cisco Cisco Broadband Access Center Telco Wireless 3.8
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Cisco Broadband Access Center for Cable Administrator’s Guide
OL-2445-02
Chapter 1 Broadband Access Center for Cable Overview
Regional Distribution Unit
Regional Distribution Unit
The RDU is the primary server in the BAC provisioning system. The RDU also provides:
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Management of device configuration generation.
•
Authoritative datastore for the BAC system.
•
Device disruption.
•
A clearinghouse function, through which all application programming interface (API) requests must
pass.
pass.
•
Management of the BAC system.
The RDU supports the addition of new technologies and services through an extensible architecture. The
RDU also supports:
RDU also supports:
•
Provisioning data access and manipulation by means of the API
•
Distributing configurations to the DPEs for scalability
•
External clients, operations support systems (OSSs), and other provisioning related functionality by
means of the API.
means of the API.
These sections describe these RDU concepts:
•
•
Configuration Generation
Device configurations can include customer required provisioning information, such as: DHCP IP
address selection, bandwidth, data rates, flow control, communication speeds, and level of service. A
configuration can contain DHCP configuration and TFTP files for any device. When an unprovisioned
device is installed, and the boot operation performed, a default configuration for the appropriate
technology is obtained from BAC and sent to the device, by means of either DHCP or TFTP. The default
configuration can be changed for each supported technology.
address selection, bandwidth, data rates, flow control, communication speeds, and level of service. A
configuration can contain DHCP configuration and TFTP files for any device. When an unprovisioned
device is installed, and the boot operation performed, a default configuration for the appropriate
technology is obtained from BAC and sent to the device, by means of either DHCP or TFTP. The default
configuration can be changed for each supported technology.
Regional Distribution Unit Failover
BAC currently supports one RDU per installation. For failover support, use your own hardware
redundant system or obtain a similar system with hot-swap capability.
redundant system or obtain a similar system with hot-swap capability.
Device Provisioning Engine
The Cisco Device Provisioning Engine (DPE) communicates with the RDU to give devices their
configurations. Each DPE caches information for up to 500 thousand devices. You can use multiple
DPEs to ensure redundancy and scalability.
configurations. Each DPE caches information for up to 500 thousand devices. You can use multiple
DPEs to ensure redundancy and scalability.
The DPE handles all configuration requests including providing configuration files for devices. It is
integrated with the Cisco Network Registrar DHCP server to control the assignment of IP addresses for
each device. Multiple DPEs can communicate with a single DHCP server.
integrated with the Cisco Network Registrar DHCP server to control the assignment of IP addresses for
each device. Multiple DPEs can communicate with a single DHCP server.