Bandwidth Goes Big With 10-Gigabit

The network assessed, it's time to draw up a shopping list. NWN generally fills its Layer 1 needs with cabling manufacturers Panduit and Corning. As a Cisco partner, NWN tends to put together a solution with Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches and routing equipment supplied by Cisco. Cisco has a line of solid performance switches that fit in a single chassis. The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switch provides up to 64 10G Ethernet ports.

However, this doesn't prevent NWN from deploying non-Cisco products.

"Most companies are using fairly standard stuff," explained Ludwig.

A vendor's commitment to support the upgrade process is a deciding factor in how solution providers select the vendor. Since manufacturers know the products best, the NWN team tells the manufacturer the kind of stuff needed and solicits recommendations, said Ludwig. Some 10G products may hit the market before standards have been ironed out and finalized. In those cases, such as products supporting longer distances, vendors have to offer technical support now and later, as well as the ability to upgrade the firmware to meet standards once they are established. Otherwise, the pre-standard product becomes obsolete. Cisco does this well, according to Ludwig.

Along with the vendor's flexibility, how the vendor handles product failures is also important, whether it's failover capabilities, a responsive product replacement program, failure mitigation technologies, or a product's MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). Solution providers have to balance cost against uptime promises to make a final decision on selecting a vendor.

STEP 4: PUT IT ON PAPER

The solution provider is now armed with three definite facts. They include the business needs, the current network state and the list of new equipment. At this point, Ludwig and his team draw up plans and design the new network. The diagrams help ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Using Microsoft Visio, Ludwig and his team develop network diagrams complete with deployment details. The cabling diagram shows how each of the closets will be connected. The switch diagram shows how the switches will be connected. In the end, an overview network diagram indicates where each piece of equipment would be physically located.

Other documents developed during this phase are labor estimates and project plans.

"The planning is critical in making sure that we don't have time delays or downtime," said Ludwig.

STEP 5: ROLL IT OUT

Implementation should take anywhere from a little less than a month to a full year, depending on the network's complexity. If the design stages, beginning with the business needs discussion and ending with the Visio diagrams, were done thoroughly, the rollout should be relatively free of costly delays or unnecessary downtime. The design stage should have allocated time for a pre-test, when the deployment is tested end-to-end in a controlled laboratory environment. The team would complete the Layer 1 tasks first, to run new cabling and to upgrade existing ones. The cables would be tested to make sure each one works properly. At this point, new power or cooling systems would be installed and new racks constructed. Once the physical environment was ready, the actual switch upgrades and replacements could proceed. After everything has been mounted and connected, there's intensive testing to make sure each component works as expected.

The lab testing is recommended because it irons out many of the issues and kinks that may occur during the actual installation. Delays are costly, especially in terms of downtime. In a dual core scenario, downtime is ideally non-existent, since one side of the network can be shut down while the other side continues to hum along. Once deployment is complete on the first side and tested thoroughly, it can take over essential network functions while the other side is brought down for maintenance.

If the deployment was to support a disaster recovery scenario, testing would include failover, by bringing down one center or the core and seeing if the other centers can keep functioning. Testing is critical. The last thing the customer and solution provider want is to discover a problem with the network during data recovery after a disaster.

Deployment is complete after thorough testing.