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General

Physical path

Another important term in ConnectMaster is the physical path. This term is used to describe a continuous chain of cross-connections. The physical path possesses the following characteristics:

Characteristic	Type	Description
Name	Text (50)	The name of physical path. If no name is given, it is handled as “<Physical Link>”.
Usage	Transport container, signal	Usage that runs along the physical path
Description	Text (256)	Any additional description of the physical path.
Status	Status type	Status description of the physical path; it can be selected from a status type defined in the library.
Owner	Organisation	Company group, department or person that belongs to the physical path.
Used by	Organisation	Company group, company, department or person that uses the physical path.
Cross-connection	Number	Number of cross-connections that make up the physical path.
Effective path length	Number	Sum of effective lengths of all cables included in the physical path.
Optical/Electrical length	Number	Sum of fibre lengths of all cables included in the physical path. (eff. length * helix factor)
Attenuation	Number	Sum of attenuation of all components of the physical paths.
Resistance	Number	Sum of resistances of all components of the physical path.
Lambda 1..5	Number	Sum of attenuation of all components of the physical paths.
Topology		For details about the structure of physical path, see below.

Planning targets

The effective path length, electrical/optical length, attenuation, Lambda 1..5, and the resistance are summarized under the term planning targets. These values are only displayed in ConnectMaster if they are non-zero values.

Attributes; defaults

Any number of attributes can be allocated to a physical path. Attributes can be predefined in the defaults, which are then automatically allocated to a new physical path in ConnectMaster.

Topology

The following terms are used to describe the topology of a physical path:

Topology	Description
Is linear (simple route)	The physical path is a simple route.
Not linear (has branches)	The physical path has branches and hence consists of different routes.
Is complex	The physical path has several branches and/or rings.
Is a ring	The physical path forms a ring.

The structure is now defined with the possible combinations of aforementioned terms:

Topology	Description
Is linear (simple route)
Not linear (has branches)
Is complex
Is a ring

Behavior

Every physical path consists of individual cross-connections that are performed between components of any category, where the category determines whether and how the path is relayed.

The categories Terminal strip, Strip, Cable always feed-through usages. Usages that e.g. rest on the left are transmitted on the right on the same point.

The category end device cannot feed-through any usages, because it only possesses right-side connection points. Please refer to Chapter “Category”.

The category T-splice itself has internal interconnections. These determine which usage is transmitted from left to right. In the T-splice, interconnections can be cross-bonded or connected through. The connection may also be completely missing.

The categories Container, Shaft, Mux, and Duct have no connection points themselves. Hence cross-connections always run via their elements.