Our most popular Physical Network Inventory add-ons Physical Route Manager (PRM) and Optical Network Atlas (ONA) are now available on Smallworld 5.1. New releases of commonly used PNI modules come with a number enhancements. All new features were also implemented in ONA & PRM for PNI 5.0 and 4.3. Please find the overview of changes and new product capabilities below.
Physical Route Manager
Physical Route Manager allows grouping any number of physical resources into an easily accessible and manageable entity called “Route”. Routes facilitate modelling utilization of physical resources for data transmission services and fiber/pairs lease.
- New version of PRM extends PNI functionality with modelling switch panels in optical splices (optical fibres with pigtails can be connected there without welding). It is also possible to plan PRM routes using switch panels. As with ODF’s, PRM also allows automatic management of connections made on switch panels.
- Automatic calculation of the optical budget (loss) during route building was added. User can control the optical loss on-the-fly, this includes loss on cables as well as loss on connections/splicing (both existing and planned).
- Information about PRM routes is now available in the connectivity window. User can see PRM routes when planning/viewing individual connections manually using the connectivity window.
- A panel that presents PRM routes running over any element of network infrastructure (like cable, ODF or splice) is now more user-friendly.
- Conflict handling in PRM was improved (by extending configuration of the PNI Conflict Framework) so the planned routes can be easily updated when changes in the network are introduced in other projects.
- It is now possible to use multi-ports when planning PRM routes.
Optical Network Atlas
ONA extends standard functionalities of Smallworld Physical Network Inventory with automatic generation of schemes for optical routes. The tool enables to present generated fiber schemes in various ways (on-screen within Smallworld application, as printed documentation or in PDF files).
- It is now possible to present how connections are located on the trays within a splice on the splice diagrams.
- During generation of schemes ONA now includes planned connections and reconfiguration of optical (passive) devices (like splitters, WDM (de)multiplxers, circulators).
- User can now add annotations (lines, labels etc.) to the generated scheme.
- It is now possible to search for labels (e.g. names of splices) on the schemes.
- Schematic generation performance was improved.
PRM and ONA in Network Inventory Gateway
Both PRM and ONA are also available via PNI web client – Network Inventory Gateway.
Optical Network Atlas extension of NIG enables access and viewing of ONA schemes on NIG web clients. The extension uses the same engine as the standard ONA running with thick Smallworld client. This way it is assured that plotouts are always identical across applications and platforms. ONA schemes are available via web clients and can be easily shared with any third parties and field technicians. This new capability in NIG improves access to network data, including fiber schematics, in daily field operations.
Physical Route Manager extension of NIG presents routes defined in PRM in thin web client in a similar way as in standard desktop Physical Network Inventory, using the same naming conventions and color schemes. Routes held in Smallworld database and managed by the PRM application are now easily accessible in the Internet and intranet, also for field technicians.
