DACS: Digital access and Cross-Connect System
From Network Dictionary Wiki
Digital access and Cross-Connect System(DACS) is a digital system in which access is performed by T-1 hardware architecture in private and public networks with centralized switching and cross-connection is performed by D3/D4 framing for switching digital-signal-0 (DS-0) channels to other DS-0 channels.
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DCS devices can be used for "grooming" telecommunications traffic, switching traffic from one circuit to another in the event of a network failure, supporting automated provisioning, and other applications. Having a DCS in a circuit-switched network provides important flexibility that can otherwise only be obtained at higher cost using manual "DSX" cross-connect patch panels.
It is important to realize that while DCS devices "switch" traffic, they are not packet switches—they switch circuits, not packets, and the circuit arrangements they are used to manage tend to persist over very long time spans, typically months or longer, as compared to packet switches, which can route every packet differently, and operate on micro- or millisecond time spans.
DCS units are also sometimes colloquially called "DACS" units, after a proprietary brand name of DCS units created and sold by AT&T's Western Electric division, now Alcatel-Lucent. Not to be mistaken for Digital Access Carrier System, a British pair gain system also using the initialism DACS.
Modern digital access and cross-connect systems are not limited to the T-carrier system, and may accommodate high data rates such as those of SONET.
See also
References
- Federal Standard 1037C
- Cisco Technical Glossary.
Categories: Network architecture | Telecommunications equipment | Digital systems