SPC

Introduction
• Efforts to improve the speed of control and
signaling
• Late 1940s and early 1950s. Use of vacuum
tubes, transistors, gas diodes, magnetic drums
and cathode ray tubes.
• Arrival of modern electronic digital computers.
• The registers and translators of common
control systems can be replaced by a single
digital computer.
 Stored Program Control
Carrying out the exchange control functions
through programs stored in the memory of a
computer.
Consequence
• Full-scale automation of exchange functions
• Introduction of a variety of new services
 Stored Program Control
• New features possible for SPC
• Common Channel Signaling (CCS)
• Centralized maintenance
• Automatic fault diagnosis
• Interactive human-machine interface
• Special Requirements of SPC
• Operating without interruption
• Fault tolerant hardware and software
 Two types of SPC switching system
(a)Electromechanical Switching
• SPC+Electromechanical switching network
(b)Electronic Switching
• SPC+Electronic switching network
 Organization of SPC
Centralized SPC
• Broadly used in early SPC switching systems.
Distributed SPC
• Gaining popularity in modern switching systems.
 Centralized SPC
• Concept
• All the control equipment is replaced by a
single powerful processor.
• Configuration of centralized SPC
• Typical organization
• Redundant configuration
Typical centralized SPC organization
Redundant centralized SPC
configuration
 Operation modes in redundant
configuration
• Standby mode
• Synchronous duplex mode
• Load sharing mode
 Standby mode
• How does it work?
• All processors have the same capability to
control the switching procedure.
• One processor is active and the other is on
standby, both hardware and software wise.
• The standby processor is brought online only
when the active processor fails.
 Standby mode
How does the standby processor take over the
control properly?
State of the exchange system should be clear to
the standby processor as its starting point.
• Which of the subscribers are busy or free?
• Which of the trunks are busy or free?
• Which of the paths are connected through the
switching network?
 Standby mode
• Reconstitution of the state Scanning:
• The standby processor scans all status signals
as soon as it is brought into operation.
• Only the calls which are being established at
the time of failure are disturbed.
• Only feasible for small exchanges.
• Shared secondary storage: popular.
 Standby mode
• Shared secondary storage:
• The active processor copies system status into a
secondary storage periodically, say very
5seconds.
• As soon as a switchover occurs, the online
processor loads the most recent update of the
system status from the secondary storage and
continues the operations.
• Only the calls which changed status between the
last update and the failure are disturbed.
• Feasible for large exchanges.
Standby mode
 Synchronous duplex mode
• How does it work?
• Both two processor execute the same set of
instructions.
• One of the processor actually controls the exchange.
• The results from two processors are compared
continuously by a comparator.
• If the results match, the system works normally.
Otherwise, a fault occurs, a check-out program is run
independently in both two processors to determine
which one is faulty.
• The faulty processor is taken out of service, and the
other one works independently.
Synchronous duplex mode
 Synchronous duplex mode
• In case of transient failure of comparator,
there are three
• possibilities exist:
• Continue with both processors.
• Take out the active processor and continue
with other processor.
• Continue with the active processor but
remove the other processor from service.
 Load sharing mode
• How does it work?
• Both two processors have access to entire exchange
environment. Each of them has independent memories
for redundancy purpose.
• Both two processors are active simultaneously and
share the load and the resources dynamically.
• An incoming call is assigned randomly or in a
predefined order to one of the processors which then
handles the call right through completion.
• Inter-processor links are configured for processors to
exchange information needed for mutual coordination
and verifying the ‘state of health’ of the other.
 Load sharing mode
• If a processor fails, the other processor takes
over the entire load including the calls already
set up by the failing processor.
Exclusion mechanism in resource sharing
• The processors should not seek the same
resource at the same time.
• Implementation: hardware & software
Load sharing mode
 Load sharing mode
• Traffic distribution between processors
• Load sharing increases the effective traffic
capacity by 30 percent compared with
synchronous duplex.
 Availability of system
A telephone exchange must show more or less a
continuous availability over a period of 30 or 40
Years.
Availability:
• Availability of a single processor system
A=MTBF/(MTBF+MTTR)
MTBF: mean time between failures
MTTR: mean time to repair, MTTR<<MTBF
Unavailability of a single processor system
U=1-A
U=MTTR/(MTBF+MTTR)
≈MTTR/MTBF
 Availability of dual processor system

Mean time between failures

• MTBFD=MTBF2/(2*MTTR)
• AD=MTBFD/(MTBFD+MTTR)
=MTBF2/(MTBF2+2MTTR2)
Unavailability
UD=1-AD≈ 2MTTR2/MTBF2
 Joint Unavailability of both the
processor
• UD =(1-A)2 =1+A2-2A

AD=1-UD =2A-A2

AD= (MTBF)2+2(MTTR)(MTBF)
(MTBF+MTTR)2

UD =1-AD = (MTTR)2
(MTBF+MTTR)2
Example:
MTBF=2000hours, MTTR=4hours
U=? UD=?
Solution:
U≈4/2000=2x10-3
i.e. 525 hours in 30 years.
UD≈2x16/(2000x2000)=8x10-6
i.e. 2.1 hours in 30 years.
 Coordination of functions
Priority of Control functions
• Level 1: O&M and charging
• Level 2: Call processing
• Level 3: Event monitoring and distribution
Interrupt processing
• Vectored interrupt
• The interrupting source supplies branch address information
to the processor.
• Nonvectored interrupt
• A main interrupt service routine scans the interrupt signals
and decides on the appropriate routine to service the specific
interrupt.
Levels of control functions
Interrupt processing
 Distributed SPC
Concept of distributed SPC
• The control functions are shared by many
processors within the exchanges.
Background
• Low cost processors
Advantages
• Better Availability
• Better Reliability
 Distributed SPC
Decomposition of Control Functions
Vertical decomposition
• The exchange environment is divided into several
blocks.
• Each block is assigned to a processor.
• A processor performs all control functions related to
the corresponding block.
• The processor in each block may be duplicated for
redundancy purposes.
• Obviously, the control system consists of a number of
control units.
• The modular structure is flexible for system expanding.
Distributed SPC
 Distributed SPC
• Horizontal decomposition
• The control functions are divided into groups, e.g.
event monitoring, call processing, and O&M
functions.
• Each processor performs only one or some of the
exchange control functions.
• A chain of processors are used to perform the
entire control of the exchange.
• The entire chain may be duplicated to provide
redundancy.
Distributed SPC
 Level 3 Processing
Tasks
• Scanning: Subscriber lines/Trunks
• Distribution: Subscriber lines/Trunks
• Marking: Registers
Location
• Close to switching network, junctors and
signaling equipment
 Level 3 Processing
Control schemes
Hard-wired control unit
• Designed as a collection of logic circuits using
logic elements
Micro programmed control unit
• Using microprocessors to implement all
control logic
 Level 2 Processing
Task
Call processing
• Level 2 processor = Switching processor
Type of processors used
• House-developed
• Standard
 Level 2 Processing
Specific characteristics of Switching processors
• Efficiently designed instructions
• Special instructions
• Special architecture for availability, fault tolerance
and security
• Special peripherals for telephones
• Special communication link for remote control
 Level 2 Processing
• Traffic handling capacity
t=a+bN N=(t-a)/b
t: the load of the switching processor measured
by its occupancy.
a: fixed overhead depending upon the exchange
capacity and configuration.
b: average time to process one call.
N: number of calls per unit time.
 Level 1 Processing
Q&M functions involved
• Administer the exchange hardware and
software.
• Add, modify or delete information in
translation tables.
• Change subscriber class of services.
• Put a new line or trunk into operation.
• Monitor traffic.
• Detect and locate faults and errors.
• Run diagnostic and test programs.
• Man-machine interaction.
Remote operation and maintenance