Access Line Cards Installation & User Guide

4 Overview
Overview
The Metrobility
®
Radiance 100Mbps Access Line Cards are the industry’s
first media converters with the ability to reach across a wide area network
(WAN) to communicate, test and reconfigure an unmanaged remote device,
without reducing the available bandwidth to the customer site. This capability is
accomplished through the employment of Metrobility’s revolutionary Radiance
technology. Using this protocol, the line cards are able to receive and transmit
special management packets in an embedded side channel that exists between
data packets.
Radiance access line cards continually exchange information in a master/slave
relationship through the fiber optic port. A card can serve as both a master and a
slave. While the master card must be under local software control via an SNMP
agent such as Metrobility’s NetBeacon
®
or WebBeacon management software, the
slave card can be located up to 100 km away.
Through NetBeacon, the network administrator can open a dialog with the remote
device to reset its hardware switch settings, monitor its environmental parameters,
or view port details and statistics. NetBeacon provides extensive real-time and
historical graphs to display information such as the packet error rate and packet
details. The administrator can also conduct tests on the remote link, without any
bandwidth reduction, and isolate problems to prevent downtime. This end-to-end
visibility and testing of the network simplifies network management and increases
reliability.
The Radiance access line card offers several operational functions that are set by
the user through hardware switches, software commands or remote management
instructions. Among the features unique to the card are loopback mode, bandwidth
provisioning with adjustable burst size setting, Far End Fault (FEF), and write
protection. Loopback enables a port to return its incoming data back to the sender.
Bandwidth provisioning and maximum burst size setting allow the user to set the
receive (RX) and transmit (TX) bandwidth through the copper port. FEF enables a
locally managed line card to detect a break in the remote card’s fiber port receiver.
Write protection enables or disables the remote card from controlling the locally
managed card. The combination of these functions, along with the line card’s
remote management ability, enable easy deployment of Ethernet WAN services to
customers.
For updating or expanding an existing network, Metrobility offers 100 Mbps access
line cards in various combinations, including fiber optic distance support up to 100
km. All cards are compatible with any Fast Ethernet device.