Overview and System Requirements

This chapter provides an overview of the Cisco Broadband Access Center for Broadband Aggregation (BAC) product and provides information about the system requirements that must be met prior to installing the BAC software.

BAC is a provisioning system that works in conjunction with CPEs and associated network elements (such as, aggregation devices, RADIUS server, ATM switches) to automate the provisioning of multi-service packages.

"Broadband Access Center System Requirements" section

Broadband Access Center Overview

Enables network service providers to meet the provisioning challenges of deploying broadband voice and data services.
Enables service providers to replace current labor-intensive and error-prone manual provisioning processes, thus supporting the mass-market deployment of broadband services.
Automates the configuration of customer premises equipment (CPE), integrated access devices, aggregation and routing devices, and network resources such as IP address management.
Ensures that network administrators follow the required sequence of operation and configuration to synchronize the network.

BAC server (requires an Oracle database):

Note The Oracle software is not included with the BAC server. You must purchase the Oracle software and license separately. For performance reasons, the Oracle database must be installed on a separate machine from BAC.

Cisco CNS Access Registrar, Release 3.0
Cisco CNS Network Registrar, Release 6.0
Cisco Configuration Engine, Release 1.3.1 with SUN patch 112438

Installation Overview

Single machine (referred to as the complete provisioning installation option)
Multiple Configuration Engines
UI Web servers

Complete Provisioning Installation Architecture

A complete provisioning BAC installation architecture consists of two machines. You install all of the BAC components on one machine, and, for performance reasons, install the Oracle Database server on a separate machine.

Distributed Installation Architecture

The distributed installation architectures allows you to install the Cisco Configuration Engine and UI Web server on the same or different machines. This option helps increase the performance of the BAC servers. The following samples show distributed BAC installation architectures.

Distributed BAC Installation with Cisco Configuration Engine

When you select BAC installation option 3, you install the Cisco Configuration Engine on one machine, the BAC product without Configuration Engine on another, and the Oracle server on a different machine.

The Configuration Engine communicates with the BAC machine and the Oracle server communicates with BAC as shown in Figure 1-1.

Distributed BAC Installation with Cisco Configuration Engine

When you select BAC installation option 3 and option 4, you install the BAC Web UI server on one machine, the Configuration Engine on another, the BAC product without Configuration Engine on another machine, and the Oracle server on a different machine.

The Configuration Engine and the BAC UI Web server communicate with BAC and the Oracle server communicates with BAC servers as shown in Figure 1-2.

Distributed BAC Installation with Cisco Configuration Engine

When you select BAC installation option 3 and option 4, you install the BAC Web UI server and the Configuration Engine on one machine.

The Configuration Engine and the BAC UI Web server communicate with BAC and the Oracle server communicates with BAC servers as shown in Figure 1-3.

Broadband Access Center System Requirements

To successfully install and subsequently use the BAC software, you must ensure that the systems on which you plan on installing BAC components meet the minimal system requirements as described in the following sections:

BAC Server Requirements

The following minimum configuration requirements must be met if you plan on installing the complete BAC server:

Sun Fire 280R compatible running Solaris 8
CD-ROM drive
2x900 MHz CPUs
2 GB RAM
4 GB swap space
2x36GB disk space
Solaris recommended cluster patches (5/25/2002 or later)

Programming Environment Requirements

CORBA 2.1 compliant
Integrated with IONA OrbixWeb 3.3.2 (Solaris 8, JDK1.2 is recommended) and Orbix 3
TIBCO 6.4.8 for event notification

Oracle Database Requirements

The Oracle software is not included with the BAC server. You must purchase the Oracle software and license separately. For performance reasons, the Oracle database must be installed on a separate machine from BAC and the Cisco CNS Network Registrar server. The Oracle server and client database is integral to provisioning devices using the BAC software. If the Oracle server is installed on a separate machine from the BAC server, then the Oracle client must be installed on the BAC server. However, setting up the Oracle database is outside the scope of this documentation.

Sun Enterprise 250 or better running Solaris 8
2 x 400 MHz CPU
2 GB RAM
2 GB swap space
16 GB hard disk

Installing Oracle Before BAC Installation

If you do not have Oracle installed, you must purchase the Oracle software and license separately, and during the Oracle installation process you must set up tablespace for the BAC subscriber.

Step 2 Set up a database instance with an Oracle SID so that an Oracle client can access the Oracle server. In this case, the SID is BAC.

Optional Components

The Broadband Access Center (BAC) product integrates with external severs and applications. The distributed nature of this software allows you to make choices of services and technologies that you make available to subscribers. BAC can contain the following components:

Cisco Networking Services (CNS) Network Registrar 6.0—The Cisco Systems carrier-class DNS and DHCP application. BAC integrates with Cisco CNS Network Registrar to provide IP management.
Cisco CNS Access Registrar 3.0 R2—The Cisco RADIUS server (optional, provides CPE authentication functions). BAC integrates with Cisco CNS Access Registrar to provide authentication, authorization, and Accounting (AAA) services.
Interlink Merit RADIUS server Release 5.1.3—The SubscriberAccessManager (SAM) is a CORBA server that supports interface with RADIUS servers. SAM supports the integration of BAC with CNS AR and Interlink Merit Radius server.
Cisco CNS Notification Engine (CNS NE) 3.0—BAC uses this product to provide network event and fault management services.
Cisco CNS Configuration Engine Release 1.3.1—BAC uses this product as a method for downloading configuration files. The Cisco Configuration Engine provides configuration file management and delivery functions. BAC supports both the Linux and Solaris versions.

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