Telecom domain networks

Classes in a telecom domain network

When a telecom domain network is added to a utility network, attribute fields are added to the nonspatial junction and edge objects and Associations table to support grouping, color schemes, and foreign key based associations. Circuit management tables are created to manage your circuits, and a dirty objects table is created to manage the status of nonspatial objects and associations in the domain network.

Each telecom domain network consists of four feature classes (Device, Line, Junction, and Assembly) and five tables (JunctionObject, EdgeObject, Circuit, CircuitSection, and Subcircuit) that are created when you create a telecom domain network using the Add Telecom Domain Network tool. These classes contain a different schema than those in a traditional domain network and are created with system-provided attribute domains assigned to system fields for use by the utility network. Additional configuration is required to use these fields.

The four feature classes are described as follows:

• Device—Represents equipment point features such as a switch, optical network terminal, or antenna. These are compact features through which resources flow and interact. For example, a switch identifies the target of a request and controls the routing of data, and an optical network terminal converts the signal from fiber into a usable form for devices. Devices can optionally have terminals when there are distinct entry points to the device. Devices can be connected to other devices, junctions, and lines. Devices can be contained in assemblies and in structure junctions, structure lines, or structure boundaries, which are containers. Devices can also contain other features and objects in the network. When assigned the Unit Container category, they can be used to manage unit identifiers (Unit IDs) on grouped objects assigned as Unit Identifiable through the Next unit ID attribute field.
• Line—Represents linear features such as cables or wireless paths. These are the lines through which your resource is delivered.
• Junction—Represents locations where lines connect to lines through features such as a slack loop, splice closure, or riser. A key use of junction features is to allow devices or lines to connect to another line at a midspan vertex. Junctions are placed as needed to complete the connection of all the features in a network.
• Assembly—Represents equipment that contains other devices, junctions, and lines. This is used when you want to model the internals of equipment using spatial features. As with device features, assembly features are compact features, but they differ in that assemblies contain other significant devices. Assemblies are useful to show a single symbol on the map yet model the internal features and their connections. You can view the internal features of an assembly on the map or in the diagram view. Potential examples of assembly features are patch panels or splitters.

The five tables are described as follows:

• JunctionObject—Represents nonspatial junction objects such as chassis, ports, or splices that are contained within devices, junctions, or other network features. Junction objects can also contain other junction objects and can optionally have terminals when there are distinct entry points for the object. When assigned the Unit Container category, they can be used to manage unit identifiers (Unit IDs) on grouped objects assigned as Unit Identifiable through the Next unit ID attribute field.
• EdgeObject—Represents nonspatial edge objects such as copper strands, fiber strands, or wireless signals contained within a line. Edge objects can also contain other features and objects. When assigned the Unit Container category, they can be used to manage unit identifiers (Unit IDs) on grouped objects assigned as Unit Identifiable through the Next unit ID attribute field.
• Circuit—System-maintained circuit management table containing the uniquely named circuits in the telecom domain network.
• CircuitSection—System-maintained circuit management table that stores information on the collection of locations for sections that compose the circuits. Each record of this table represents a collection of locations (starting point, stopping point, barrier or subcircuit) used in the section.
• Subcircuit—System-maintained circuit management table that represents how circuits are subdivided to define another circuit.

The following diagram shows the classes in a utility network for a telecommunications company that uses a telecom domain network alongside a traditional electric domain network to serve its customers:

Domain network class naming

Each class name is prefixed with the name you provided for the telecom domain network. Additionally, an alias name can be defined when creating a domain network that is applied to each domain network class. For example, a TelcoDevice feature class could have a default alias name of Telco device. The classes included in a telecom domain network are listed in the following table.

The following table includes example names and aliases for classes in a telecom domain network named Telco:

Class names in a telecom domain network

Telecom domain network attributes

Many of the components and equipment in the telecom industry are represented as nonspatial objects. Modeling these fiber systems can pose unique challenges from a data volume perspective. To address these challenges and decrease the number of records used to store network features in a telecom domain network, associations on domain network classes are modeled using foreign-key fields instead of through the Associations table in the following scenarios:

• Junction-edge connectivity associations—Foreign keys are used to establish junction-edge from and junction-edge to connectivity on either side of an edge object using the following fields: FromSourceID, FromGlobalID, FromTerminalID, FromFirstUnit, FromNumUnits, ToSourceID, ToGlobalID, ToTerminalID, ToFirstUnit, ToNumUnits.
• Containment associations—Foreign keys are used to model containment associations using the ContainerSourceID and ContainerGlobalID fields on all domain network classes.

  Note:

  When adding containment associations, if the feature already has a container, the content features are added to the Associations table, ContainerSourceID field is updated with a sentinel value of Association, and ContainerGlobalID field is null.

All classes in a telecom domain network share the following attributes:

Features from the Device and Junction classes have the following additional attributes:

Features from the Device class have the following additional attribute:

Features from the Assembly class have the following additional attributes:

Features from the Line class have the following additional attributes:

The JunctionObject table has the following additional attributes:

The EdgeObject table has the following additional attributes:

The three circuit management tables created with the first telecom domain network (Circuit, CircuitSection, and Subcircuit) have unique schema and characteristics. To learn more, see Circuit management tables.