CMTS Load Balance Exploration

Cable load-balancing is a very complicated technology. Its main target is to solve theproblem where in some channel, the bandwidth consumption is too high, while there’s stillenough bandwidth left in the other channels on the same fiber-node. Load-balancing iscapable of spreading the load equally as possible to each transmitting/receiving channel.However there’s no perfect solution yet. So far, most network equipment providers, togetherwith CableLabs are still on the way of improving and exploring this technology to get betterend-user experience. Even though, clients are prone to service interruption due to the natureof this technology.This thesis aims at delivering a set of practical and testable cable load-balance systemsolution based on up-to-date cable theory and technology. From the big picture, this solutionwill cover the application of various kinds of load balancing. Meanwhile from a more detailedview, the thesis will find out the challenges of each load-balance application senarios and thesolution to them. Our goal is to help the ISP to enhance load-balance design, decrease the sideeffect which load-balance may bring us, decrease service interruption and increase theutilization of current network infrastructure. Thus, we’ll be able to increase not only thenetwork speed and experience of our end users, but also the core competitiveness of ournetwork service providers. This paper will cover classic load-balance, Docsis load-balance,Docsis3.0load-balance and restricted load-balance. It will implement the methodology ofcombining theoretical research and company project. Our project will be based on labexperiment rather than pure theory.The thesis starts from the lower layer cable transmission protocol: Docsis protocol toestablish a solid foundation of the main part: cable load-balance. Then it’ll introduce twofeatures, DCC and DBC on which load-balance is based. After getting familiar with the network transmission and channel change theory, the thesis formally starts introducing thecable load-balance system. First it will categorize load-balance and introduce the theory ofeach category one by one. After that, it’ll look into some tough application examples,especially the interaction issues with other networking features that our SP customers meetmost often. The thesis will state the solution and test them. In the last section of the article, itwill summarize what was achieved and establish a testable cable load-balance system thatcovers all solutions concluded in this article. And do a comparison test both with and withoutthe solution and prove that the solution actually works based on test result. In the end, thethesis will demonstrate based on the test result and previous theoretical analysis how toconfigure load-balance on different senarios. Those senarios include DOCSIS2.0, DOCSIS3.0,number of modems, unicast or multicast, voice service, etc. It is expected that load sharing isoptimized, service interruption is minimized and customer experience is dramaticallyenhanced.