Rostelecom completed trial operation of a segment of regional network on the basis of the SDN solution

On August 20, 2018 the Rostelecom company announced completion of trial operation of the segment of regional network constructed on the basis of switches using SDN technologies. The acting subscribers of the company were gradually transferred to the constructed infrastructure.

Results of trial operation confirmed high functional readiness of the SDN solution of Brain4Net company for commercial use in networks of telecom operators. Key criterion of success of a pilot project was correct providing the existing services when providing necessary figures of merit of the provided services (SLA).

The project started in Orenburg in the fall of 2017 when the first subscribers - more than two thousand individuals and also several hundred clients using prefixes for interactive television and corporate clients of VPN services were transferred to pilot network segment. Peak load on a pilot segment made about 3 Gbps.

This network segment was under fixed observation of specialists of Rostelecom and Brain4Net who analyzed key indicators and compared them to similar metrics of already existing infrastructure. For all the time of trial operation it is not recorded any accident. I.e. upgrade of infrastructure of the operator took place with the minimum impact on subscribers.

Rostelecom noted that the solution Brain4Net conforms to requirements of architecture of Metro Ethernet based on SDN technologies and allows to set up automatically network equipment, gives the chance on a centralized basis to configure services (L2VPN IPTV , etc.) and to appoint politicians of service quality. Thanks to it the operator can lower housekeeping overheads of network infrastructure and, therefore, cost value of the provided services. Use of SDN switches instead of MPLS- routers which can have excess functionality, will allow to lower capital costs of upgrade of infrastructure. Besides, the reached automation level thanks to use of SDN technology will allow to reduce time to market of new services (Time-to-market).

"The solution allows service provider to build networks of the subway aggregation with high economic rates and level of control automation. Use of the Brain4Net platform gives an opportunity to the operator to create the integrated management system for networks, including transport and service levels. Further work will include both functional development, and integration into services of Rostelecom. Maxim Kaminsky, CEO of Brain4Net

"Within development of the idea of this pilot we continue works on a research and solution integration of Brain4Net with hardware platforms based on ASIC Broadcom and Barefoot for obtaining even more high-performance solutions". Dmitry Sakharchuk, chief architect of the Corporate center of Rostelecom

The pilot project which became logical continuation of laboratory tests of technical solutions for upgrade of regional networks of Rostelecom on the basis of SDN technologies assumed functional and stress testing on real network of the hardware and software system consisting of bare-metal of switches of Noviflow company and switches based on x86 architecture of Depo Computers company under control of the Brain4Net SDN controller.

Network segment in Orenburg includes two Noviflow NS-2128 switches based on NPU EZchip NP-5 and three DEPO Switch switches 6324XK. Management of network equipment and services was performed by a failover cluster of Brain4Net, set on three servers DEPO Storm 3400A2.