Connection Restrictions¶

Real world does not allow connecting anything to anything. So inventory MUST enforce as many restrictions as possible. Connection restrictions may be expressed in several complimentary ways:

• Type
• Direction
• Gender
• Protocols
• Crossing

Connection may be established only when all five kind of restrictions met.

Type¶

Connection Type restricts a physical type of connection. I.e. meaningless to connect RJ-45 jack to C14 electrical socket. Connection may be established only with same or compatible types.

Connection type examples:

• RJ45
• C13
• C14
• LC

Type may be considered as mechanical form-factor, something like the form, size, and patterns of pins and holes.

Connection type compatibility may be complex. See Connection Type Restrictions discussion for explanation.

Gender¶

Connections of same Connection Type may be symmetrical, or genderless; or be of two mutual fitting sides (male and female). NOC supports 3 genders:

• s - genderless, or side connection.
• m - male connection.
• f - female connection.

Genders may be mated according the table:

Or mnemonically: side-to-side, male-to-female, female-to-male. Unlike the real life, NOC doesn't support advanced combinations of relations.

Males and females are equal in rights and division is very arbitrary.

Possible genders on connections may be additionally restricted by Connection Types. See Genders Restriction Discussion for additional explanation.

Direction¶

Connection direction determines hierarchy of connected object. NOC supports three directions:

• i - Inwards: The connected object will be put inside the current one.
• o - Outwards: The current object will be put inside the connected one.
• s - Side: Objects will be connected but neither object will be put inside the peer one.

i connections are usually slots for various extension modules, linecards, PSU e.t.c. They allow gaining of additional features by putting something inside.

o connections are usually extension modules itself. They should be put into something to became valuable.

s connections are neither previous cases. They are used to connect the object with outer world. Various cables, patch-cords, power cables are good examples of s connections.

s connections utilize genders, while the gender of i and o connections is only conventional. i connections are usually females, while o are male ones.

Directions can be connected by following way:

Or mnemonically: side-to-side, inwards-to-outwards, outwards-to-inwards. Following chart explains inwards-to-outwards kind of relation:

Unlike the genders, directions are rarely misused.

Protocols¶

While types, genders and directions are merely physical properties, which can easily be observed with naked eye, protocols define agreements on electrical, optical and other kind of signals. Connection is the physical media, while protocols is the logical use of it.

Consider example: RJ-45 port (Connection type Electrical | RJ45, gender female, direction side) is only the hole in the box. It may serve as ethernet port: maybe 10Mbit/s, or 100Mbit/s, or gigabit one. It may provide or consume power over PoE. It may be console port, utilizing RS-232 serial protocol. It may support 2 or 4-wire RS-485 serial protocol. It may be dumb passive cross-panel entry, leading floors away. You still may plug RJ-45 jack anyway, but will be any use of that?

So the protocols define possible usage of connection. Refer to the Inventory Protocols for the full list of protocols, provided by NOC. Protocols may be symmetric, when both peers utilizing same configuration, like autoconfigured ethernet ports. Protocols may be asymmetric, like PoE consumer and PoE provider, RS-232 DTU and DCU.

Asymmetric protocols are denoted by > and < prefix, like '>RS-232' and '> leads inside the protocol, meaning that it will be consumed. i.e. '>POE' means that device may consume power over PoE over given connection. < leads outside the protocol, meaning that it will be provided. i.e. '<POE' means that device can provide power over PoE over given connection. Protocol without > and < can be provided and consumed as well.

Protocols are gender-agnostic. i.e. RS-232 DCU may use DB-9 male or female sockets as well.

Connection may support several protocols, i.e. ethernet may be coupled with PoE, and so on.

i and o directions enforces strict protocol match. i connection may provide at least one protocol which peer's o connection may consume, or vise versa. s connections may provide protocols, or be protocol-agnostic with empty protocols list. Protocol-agnostic connections dependency will be described later.

Protocol compatibility matrix:

Mnemonic rules: Pure providers shall not be mated with pure providers, pure consumers shall not be mated with pure consumers.

Protocol-agnostic connections are the proxies or the media. They cannot deal with protocol itself, but they can transport protocol to connection, which can handle it. Best example of the protocol-agnostic connections is the cable. It has two ends, and it can transport signal to the other end. Transport capabilities and restrictions are discussed in the Crossing section.

Protocol-agnostic connections are traced to the other ends and cannot be connected only in one two cases:

• Provided or consumed protocol can be traced to compatible endpoint (s port with compatible protocol).
• Provided or consumed protocol cannot be traced to endpoint with any other protocol. (dark fibre principe).

Crossing¶

Crossing is the additional set of rules which can be applied to protocol-agnostic s connections within same object to define the possible protocol flow. Without the crossing restriction signal incoming to genderless s connection will be flow to each other genderless s connections of the object. Consider the picture:

Note that incoming path on slot 1 may be continued via outgoing slots 2, 3 and 4, as protocol-agnostic and having s direction. Path cannot be continued over out slot, as having o direction.

Groups¶

To apply additional restriction on crossing paths, slots can be assigned into different groups. Path can stay only within same connection groups. Consider the picture.

Note that incoming path on slot 1 is restricted by connection group 1, so it can be propagated only to slots 3 and 4. Path via the slot '2' is prohibited, as leaving outside the group.

Cross¶

Cross applies explicit restrictions on internal connections. Cross may contain the name of the peer connection, and the behavior depends on peer connection crossing settings:

• If the peer connection defines crossing back to the starting, direct crossing is considered.
• If the peer connection defines no crossing, peer considered to be the source, and the signal power applied to the source will be divided between all referring connections.

Examples¶