CHAPTER
General Description 2-1
2
General Description
This chapter contains an overall physical and functional description of the BPX switch. The physical
description includes the BPX switch enclosure, power, and cooling subsystems. The functional
description includes an overview of BPX switch operation.
This chapter contains the following:
Physical Description
Functional Description
BPX Switch Major Groups
Optional Peripherals
Physical Description
The BPX switch is supplied as a stand-alone assembly. It may be utilized as a stand-alone ATM
switch, or it may be integrated at customer sites with one or more narrowband IPX switches,
multi-band IGX switches, MGX 8220 shelves, and other access devices to provide network access
to broadband backbone network links for narrowband traffic. Cisco and CPE service interface
equipment can also be co-located with the BPX switch and connect to its ATM service interfaces.
BPX Switch Enclosure
The BPX switch enclosure is a self-contained chassis which may be rack mounted in any standard
19 inch rack or enclosure with adequate ventilation. It contains a single shelf which provides fifteen
slots for vertically mounting the BPX switch cards front and rear. Refer to Figure 2-1 which illustrate
the front view of the BPX switch Shelf.
At the front of the enclosure (see Figure 2-1) are 15 slots for mounting the BPX switch front cards.
Once inserted, the cards are locked in place by the air intake grille at the bottom of the enclosure. A
mechanical latch on the air intake grille must be released by using a screwdriver and the grille must
be tilted forward in order to remove or insert cards.
At the rear of the enclosure (illustrated in Figure 2-2) is another series of card slots for mounting the
rear plug-in cards. These are held in place with two thumbscrews, top and bottom. A mid-plane,
located between the two sets of plug-in cards, is used for interconnect and is visible only when the
cards are removed.
To provide proper cooling, it is essential that blank faceplates be installed in all unused slots. Failure
to do so will degrade node cooling and circuit card damage will result. The blank faceplates also
provide RFI shielding.
