Case Studies
End of life products
Customer need:
Many network equipment vendors have different generations of devices still in operation in the field and their users are still happy with them because after years of use they still do the job. Sometimes though some upgrade is done to the network and new functionalities are required for the old devices in order to spare a huge investment to replace them completely with new generation devices.
The challenge:
The sources for the respective device version have been considered obsolete for quite some time now, they only exist on some backup server and they used to compile on one of the first Ubuntu versions. They no longer compile on any modern Linux distribution.
Over the years all the people who were familiar with that product either left the company or got assigned to new roles and new products bringing new revenue so nobody is available to take the task in time to...
Network monitoring
The customer need:
LTE networks need a high capacity, low convergence, redundant backhaul ethernet or MPLS network.
Mobile providers need also to monitor the quality and the load of the services they offer that will alert and react quickly to any problem.
The challenge:
Failures must be noticed at service level not at link level.
Depending on the capacity of each node there are several types of equipment, with different prices, different hardware abilities and even different operating systems.
The solution:
A set of standard protocols based on IEEE 802.1ag was implemented across the entire device range, from the low-end VxWorks based devices to the high-end WindRiver Linux devices.
Where available, network processor or FPGA support was used to decrease failure reaction times and increase s...
Wireless access point controller
The customer need:
The advent of cheap, fast smart-phones and social media have risen the need for broadband Wi-fi coverage. While this is easy to solve on small scale, by placing a single access point at home, in pubs or in restaurants, on a larger scale, like stadiums, concert halls or even smart cities, provisioning and managing the large number of stations and access points is a huge problem.
The challenge:
A large number of access points must receive their configuration from and must report to a single centralized location. The configuration for each AP must be coordinated with the one for the other APs it interacts with. The network admin must be able to connect "blank" APs into the network and be able to configure them remotely. User access to the network must also be controlled through radius vouchers.
The solution:
A web application based on php and mysql running either on a dedicated server or in the cloud creates enc...
SDN load balancer
The customer need:
In the last decade broadband Internet and FFTH have become a comodity and with it came the need for cheap, bare-metal switches that can handle lots of traffic. In this context the incoming traffic needs also to prioritize certain types of traffic by using a different gateway.
The challenge:
Being bare-metal switches there is little software running on them and any application added there must be very light in order not to take resources from more important processes.
The deployment contains lots of devices that need to be controller from a central location and also each device must be aware of the other devices it is connected to.
The solution:
OpenDaylight is a successful modular SDN controller that can be used to define flows for the different types of traffic and apply them on all devices through a custom OpenFlow module i...