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Customer Case Study
Meeting Researchers' Needs for Innovative, High-Bandwidth Service
By migrating its optical backbone ring to Cisco® DWDM technology, the Czech Republic's national research and education network has created a high-speed network that is better able to support leading-edge research nationally and globally. At the same time, by also using Cisco ROADM technology, the network can be configured remotely, simplifying network management and reducing costs.
Business Challenges
The Czech Educational and Scientific Network (CESNET) is an association of 25 Czech universities and the Czech Academy of Sciences. It develops and operates the Czech Republic's national research and education network (NREN) that links more than 200 research and academic sites across the country, as well as supporting a number of major international research projects. The association is funded primarily by the Czech Government's Council for Science and Research and its members.
In 2003, as demand for bandwidth continued to grow, particularly in Prague and Brno (the Czech Republic's two largest cities and the locations of many university sites and research institutions), CESNET began to consider network expansion. At this time, it was already making extensive use of dark fiber to build a high-capacity, relatively low-cost, national optical network spanning more than 3100 km.
One option for increasing the network's bandwidth was to lease more dark fiber, but this was rejected by CESNET as being too expensive. A much more viable alternative was to deploy dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to increase the capacity of the existing fiber but, again, CESNET was uncertain of the costs.
Solution
An investigation into the economics of DWDM showed that the investment would pay back within a short timescale. CESNET put the idea to its members, pointing out that DWDM equipment could increase the capacity of its existing fiber by combining and transmitting multiple signals simultaneously at different wavelengths on the same fiber. This offered the potential of 10-Gbps data transmission speeds.
The investment was approved, and in spring 2004, CESNET issued a tender for DWDM technology, initially for its most congested link between Prague and Brno. Later CESNET planned to migrate most of its backbone network to an optical DWDM ring that would connect all the country's major university and research centers. In this way, these communities would benefit from enhanced connectivity both nationally and internationally, with better access to projects like the European Union's GÉANT2 research network development.
Five companies responded to CESNET's tender, and, after six months of consideration, CESNET awarded a contract to Cisco Systems® working with Czech systems integrator, Intercom Systems. "Cisco's DWDM solution offered the best performance for the price," explains Jan Gruntorad, CESNET's Chief Executive Officer. "Technically it was very advanced and also very open to enable new features to be implemented, such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexing, which some of the other vendors couldn't offer."
The high quality of the support and information given to CESNET and its network engineers was another reason Cisco won the contract. Cisco provided extensive information about its DWDM optical transport platform and its future roadmap.
CESNET also decided to take Cisco Advanced Services, a range of network support services providing network maintenance and troubleshooting. More importantly from CESNET's point of view, the services included expert help with planning a network's future evolution. Using these services, CESNET was able to tailor its DWDM network plans according to Cisco knowledge on the future direction of DWDM developments and the types of products and features it was planning.
"These days, network technology is evolving very quickly and our users have high expectations about the performance and reliability of the services they receive. That's why we believe we have to use the latest technology and why a close, ongoing relationship with a leading communications company like Cisco is very important," says Jan Gruntorad.
As a long-time pioneer among NRENs in the design and operation of optical networks, CESNET's strategy has always been to purchase the most up-to-date technology that it can afford and which meets its needs. In 2000, it was one of the first organisations in Europe to establish a Gigabit data transmission line using Cisco optical equipment. With the DWDM solution, it became the first NREN in Europe to enjoy transmission speeds of 10 Gbps based on Cisco technology.
Having selected a DWDM system that would enable CESNET to create an advanced network with sophisticated configuration and control mechanisms, the next step was to install the equipment in little more than a month to meet CESNET's deadline to have the first phase of its optical ring project in operation by the end of 2004. To meet this challenge, Cisco assembled an experienced team, including local engineers from both Cisco and Intercom, as well as experts from the Cisco Italy-based optical business unit.
The project, which included the installation and testing of two Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport Platforms (MSTPs), one in Prague and the other in Brno, was completed on time. With this part of the network successfully upgraded, CESNET issued a second tender in 2005 for two further DWDM systems, including ROADM technology, to complete the main backbone optical ring - Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Hradec Králové, Prague. Cisco and Intercom won the contract, and by the end of 2005, the DWDM ring was carrying live traffic.
Business Results
By migrating to a DWDM ring, CESNET has increased the bandwidth of its existing optical network from 2.5 Gbps to 10 Gbps at four key locations. This has given universities and research institutions at these sites access to an advanced network platform and opportunities to more easily pursue national and international collaborative projects.
The Cisco equipment used in CESNET's network, the ONS 15454 MSTP, supports up to 32 wavelengths of 10-Gbps bandwidth on a single fiber and also provides support for Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) connectivity. "With the DWDM network, we are aiming to provide innovative services that are unavailable from other service providers and we are now discussing these new possibilities with our research community," says Jan Gruntorad.
The link between Prague and Brno is compatible with future deployments of 40Gbps (STM-256) channels. The upgradability to 40 Gbps was verified by extensive analysis and simulations performed by the Cisco optical group in Monza.
A priority is to support grid computing (a way of combining computers across a network to help solve complex problems) that requires high-bandwidth, low-latency connections. In the Czech Republic, this is of particular interest to high-energy physicists who often need to share large amounts of data nationally and globally. CESNET now has the potential to offer them not only bandwidth, but also end-to-end services with guaranteed performance.
Another new service being considered is the use of the DWDM network to transfer high-resolution images, such as x-rays, for medical applications. CESNET will be able to offer one or more dedicated high-bandwidth channels, again guaranteeing low latency, delay, and jitter that are particularly important for real-time applications.
The benefits of using the Cisco DWDM system are also beginning to be realized by CESNET in the management of its network, which is now much simpler, more cost-effective and less labor-intensive. By using ROADM technology, CESNET is able to provide bandwidth on demand to any location within the optical ring, remotely from its network operations center in Prague. "Cisco ROADM technology being within our budget was critical. It allows us to configure the network very quickly from Prague without any manual intervention from engineers at the other locations," says Jan Gruntorad.
Previously, a request from a member institution for more bandwidth required careful planning and analysis, and specialist engineers to visit the site to manually reconfigure the network node. Sometimes bandwidth was unavailable. Now, with a highly scalable and easy-to-provision optical network spanning most of its major university cities, CESNET is better able to serve its members at these locations. In turn, its members will be able to more easily share their experiments and results, strengthening their role in local and global research projects.
To further expand these high-speed networking facilities, CESNET is already planning to add two more locations to its DWDM infrastructure. A tender is now being prepared for DWDM equipment for connections between Prague and Pilsen, and Olomouc and Ostrava. From Ostrava, a link will then be established with Poland's NREN, Pionier.
Technology Blueprint
CESNET's DWDM backbone optical fiber ring currently interconnects nodes at Prague, Brno, Olomouc, and Hradec Králové using the Cisco optical transport platform, Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP, at each node. Other backbone links in the network use Packet over SONET (PoS) technology that provides 2.5-Gbps capacity, and Gigabit Ethernet with 1-Gbps capacity.
The Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP supports up to 32 wavelengths, each with a bandwidth of 10 Gbps, for a total capacity of 320 Gbps per fiber. Previously, the maximum capacity of the ring, which was built in 2003 according to CESNET's new network topology design that required no more than four points of presence in any backbone ring, was 2.5 Gbps.
Another feature of the Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP that was crucially important for CESNET was Cisco ROADM technology that provides total wavelength add, drop, or pass-through flexibility at any ROADM-enabled node. In CESNET's ring, any wavelength can be remotely provisioned between any two sites without the need to deploy additional hardware or onsite engineers, simplifying network maintenance and accelerating service delivery.
The Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP is also capable of automated power adjustment and transmission across distances from tens to hundreds of kilometers, enabled through the use of advanced amplification, dispersion compensation, and enhanced Forward Error Correction technologies.
In parallel with the development of the optical layer, CESNET continues to upgrade the IP layer and migrate to 10 GE, a process that involves the deployment of higher-performance routers in the network core and the addition of 10-GE interfaces to access routers.