Telecom Networks - Infrastructure & Connectivity
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Main contact
Vic Baldorino
Address
Premier House
1-7 Warren Road
Reigate
Surrey
RH2 0BE
Telephone
01737 224422
Alternative telephone
07785 231201
Fax
01737 246571
Email
vb@updatanet.co.uk
Service details
Updata - Designing, Building and Managing Carrier Class Netorks
Updata Infrastructure UK Ltd (Updata) provides managed broadband networks to local government and other public sector organisations, providing highly cost effective communication between remote locations including schools, home workers, offices, depots, councillors, libraries, CCTV cameras, I-Points etc.
Since its launch in January 2003, Updata Infrastructure UK Ltd has grown to become the largest supplier of Symmetric High Bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (SHDSL) based network solutions to local government in the UK.Updata has been profitable since its inception and has now achieved sales in excess of £33 million. Updata has connected more than 2,000 sites to more than ten separate networks, utilising over 200 “Points of Presence” in BT exchanges around the country.To satisfy the stringent and changing demands of the UK Local Government, Updata designs, implements and manages bespoke, private wide area networks.These networks are high-speed, Quality of Service enabled IP infrastructures. Each provides an economical private network connecting all the Council’s sites via a secure dedicated network infrastructure.The core fibre and licensed wireless backbones, real-time online reporting and industry-leading service level agreements (SLAs) are ideal for wide area network (WAN) implementations and capable of responding to the rapidly changing public sector environment. It will be a key component in each Council’s journey towards an integrated communications and IT infrastructure.
Each Council has its own network infrastructure. Each is designed as a future-proof, modular solution with a flexible service that will be tailored to meet each Council’s changing needs, as shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1. The Network at a glance At the heart of each network is a high-capacity, fully-managed backbone, supporting traffic prioritisation by ‘classes of service’ and covered by stringent availability SLAs and 24x7 fault resolution. That’s what we mean by QoS or ‘quality of service’. Each network can easily scale as the council’s requirements change, only paying for the bandwidth and performance levels needed. Options include secure remote site access and secure remote user access to enable small or remote sites and employees working from home or on the move to be included in the network. A high level view of the networks is summarised diagrammatically in Document 1 Attached.Migrating to the Network
IT and network services lie at the heart of every successful organisation. Councils will require ever more complex applications and ever more extensive network resources to support their growing requirements. Increasingly, many organisations are migrating from legacy environments to IP-based services to meet this need. Updata develops a managed migration plan to help each council move from their existing wide area networks to its new Updata infrastructure, including migration testing and expert project management support using the PRINCE2 methodology.Most importantly, Updata will work with customers throughout the migration progress, in order to make the transition as smooth as possible.
The Updata Service
The Updata Service consists of a new network infrastructure and a number of service options. The network infrastructure, as illustrated in Figure 1, provides every end site with access from CPE via a local loop to the nearest point of presence (PoP) on the core network infrastructure backbone. These PoPs will be located either within public telephone exchanges or nominated council owned premises, by the most appropriate access method. These methods are described in ‘Direct access to the core network backbone’ below. The Service includes management of the CPE and its connection to the local loop. In the event of a network issue, Updata has in place a 24-hour, seven-day per week fault resolution system. See the section ‘Customer Support’ for more information. The network infrastructure is covered by an availability SLA, with rebates if this target is not met. There are also packet loss, latency and jitter targets on network links each backed by rebates within the SLA. These agreements are summarised in Table 2 below with full details given in later in this document. Table 2. Typical Network SLAs MetricPrimary access via SHDSL, fibre or wirelessSite availability Typical 99.85%Latency Maximum 50ms one wayJitter Maximum 5ms one wayPacket loss Maximum 0.1% one way
Direct Access to the Core Network
End user sites have direct access into the core network backbone. This direct access is provided by one of three different technologies: SHDSL, wireless and fibre. ADSL is also available for home workers and small offices where the location is within an LLU enabled exchange area.Every end user site is studied and the most cost effective method for access is chosen. Table 3 lists the access speeds that can be achieved by the different access methods.Table 3. Access speeds by Access Method1 Not all options are listed
Resilience
Each element within the core network is fully resilient with automatic data rerouting and load balancing. The automatic rerouting ensures maximum service availability for end sites. The automatic load balancing means that the network is always used at its optimum level.
Flexible Bandwidth
The SHDSL/LLU access method is extremely flexible and is able to respond quickly to changes in end site requirements. Increases in bandwidth can typically be provided within 4 weeks of a Change Request being received. Similarly end site bandwidth can be reduced in 2Mbps amounts. This saves circuit rentals and helps optimise the network for cost versus actual bandwidth needs.
Traffic Prioritisation
The network uses IP quality of service (QoS) to prioritise different types of traffic, ensuring that business-critical and real-time data does not suffer degradation regardless of the amount of other traffic on the network. Percentages of the total bandwidth are reserved for each type of traffic, safeguarding the most important traffic streams.Updata will work with councils to define these percentages to ensure each network will deliver the best experience for their end users. To divide the bandwidth into classes of service, councils will be able to prioritise at layers 2, 3 and 4. Each traffic type is then assigned to an available class of service. Table 4 describes how different traffic will be associated with the 4 different classes of service provided: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze.Table 4. Choosing the right class of service Name Queue Description Suitable for Platinum The highest-level CoS, prioritised over all other traffic. Delay-sensitive, real-time applications such as IP Telephony. If councils don't carry voice over the network, councils can use Platinum class for other applications that require high priority such as videoconferencing. GoldThe second highest CoS, prioritised over Silver and Bronze.Applications that are less sensitive to jitter but are still delay-sensitive, due either to their nature or business criticality (for example, financial transactions). SilverThe third highest CoS, prioritised over Bronze.Applications that are less sensitive to jitter and less delay-sensitive. Allocating applications to Silver CoS can protect them from high-bandwidth, low-priority traffic such as FTP and HTTP downloads.BronzeThe lowest-level CoS.Non-time-critical traffic such as email or web browsing.Bespoke class of service configurations As each customer has different applications, end users and end sites, their requirements are different. To support these differences each network has bespoke CoS configurations. Implementing classes of service Updata will configure the network to accept the CoS profile tailored to the requirements.Updata will help councils decide how to allocate suitable bandwidth segments to each CoS to meet the requirements of traffic volumes and applications, and ensure they are implemented throughout.Furthermore, as the network develops, configuration changes will be made to continually support end user demands. Changing requirements With the network, important data flows are safeguarded and guaranteed - traffic in each CoS is assured of its committed bandwidth, regardless of the amount of traffic in other classes. Councils will not have to increase access bandwidths to support growth in non-critical traffic such as email. However, councils can alter access bandwidth or modify the CoS configurations to suit their changing requirements. In this way, the network is able to cater for the increases in Platinum traffic that occur during the move toward an integrated communications and IT infrastructure, enabling a reduction in cost and complexity, for example by using IP Telephony to carry voice traffic over the same network as the data.Updata manages the network, the local loop connections plus the CPE at the end sites.Updata takes full responsibility for configuring and managing the CPE (remotely whenever possible) to provide all aspects of the service, including classes of service and flexible bandwidth. As a result Updata is able to provide network performance SLAs and real-time network performance reporting. To provide these benefits, Updata provides CPE that can support the performance requirements that councils demand.Updata will provide an Operational Process Document (OPD) which details all processes and information relating to the customers’ service requirements.Table 6 below lists the elements included in this managed service. Table 6. Service elements included Each Council has its own network infrastructure. Each is designed as a future-proof, modular solution with a flexible service that will be tailored to meet each Council’s changing needs, as shown in Table 1 below. Table 1. The Network at a glance Service ElementIncludedService DesküIncident ManagementüService Level ManagementüService ReviewüMAC CoordinationüNetwork Inventory (CMDB)üNetwork MonitoringüNetwork AvailabilityüQoS MetricsüMaintenance of Zero Network Contention üConfiguration BackupüOperational Maintenanceü
Access speed 1Access MethodSHDSL/MPFFibreWirelessADSL512Kbps ü1Mbps ü ü2Mbps ü ü4Mbpsü ü6Mbpsü 8Mbpsü üü10Mbpsüü 12Mbpsü ü 16Mbpsü 20Mbpsü 30Mbpsü 40Mbpsü 48Mbps üü100Mbps üü 155Mbps ü 311Mbps ü 622Mbps ü 1Gbps ü
ElementProposed service Options Backbone Fibre and licensed wireless backbone with Quality of ServiceMPLSDirect access Via SHDSL, Ethernet or Wireless Extended access Dedicated ADSL access to specific QoS VLANsBandwidth Bandwidth into the IP QoS backbone1Mbps up to 10GbpsTraffic prioritisation Up to 4 levels of priority at end user sites - supports voice over IP (VoIP) Management Full end-to-end management of all services and CPE SLAs Availability and performance SLAs with rebates if they're not met Reporting Real-time reporting for each end site connection to the network and each link within the core infrastructure.Monthly management reports bespoke to the council’s requirements.Support services Flexible support covering core infrastructure and end sites.
ElementProposed service Options Backbone Fibre and licensed wireless backbone with Quality of ServiceMPLSDirect access Via SHDSL, Ethernet or Wireless Extended access Dedicated ADSL access to specific QoS VLANsBandwidth Bandwidth into the IP QoS backbone1Mbps up to 10GbpsTraffic prioritisation Up to 4 levels of priority at end user sites - supports voice over IP (VoIP) Management Full end-to-end management of all services and CPE SLAs Availability and performance SLAs with rebates if they're not met Reporting Real-time reporting for each end site connection to the network and each link within the core infrastructure.Monthly management reports bespoke to the council’s requirements.Support services Flexible support covering core infrastructure and end sites.
At the heart of each network is a high-capacity, fully-managed backbone, supporting traffic prioritisation by ‘classes of service’ and covered by stringent availability SLAs and 24x7 fault resolution. That’s what we mean by QoS or ‘quality of service’. Each network can easily scale as the council’s requirements change, only paying for the bandwidth and performance levels needed. Options include secure remote site access and secure remote user access to enable small or remote sites and employees working from home or on the move to be included in the network.