Many of our customers find their legacy networks can be upgraded to ACS Metro Ethernet and MPLS, delivering greater functionality and reliability – at no increase in cost.

For this customer, moving up from their frame relay based network gave them:

• Full support for current applications plus new functionality
• Improved overall throughput and performance
• Increased reliability of their overall network and mission-critical links
• All for less than the cost of a single circuit in their legacy network

The client is a global F500 company with a diverse customer base serving multinationals as well as consumers. In Alaska, the client has a central hub in Anchorage with several business centers throughout the state.

The client’s legacy network had two major components: in-state links to its major business centers, and a mission-critical high-speed connection to its corporate HQ in the Lower 48. Due to the mix of networks, edge equipment and carriers, system maintenance costs were high. Also, the client had only limited views of their network’s end-to-end health or levels of congestion.

The client’s in-state network used a mix of legacy frame relay and TDM data circuits in a hub and spoke design with 11 sites terminating to the Anchorage hub site. These circuits were erratic during peak periods.

Support and network upgrades frequently required personnel to fly to remote locations.

For its connection to corporate HQ, the client used a single DS3 (45Mb) TDM circuit from its Alaska central hub in Anchorage. Redundancy was limited to a small Internet VPN that required manual intervention when needed. The client could not prioritize traffic or scale bandwidth over this link, so they had to pay for a full DS3 even though it carried little traffic most of the time. The redundant path was also unreliable, frequently required manual intervention and was too small to support the traffic requirements. This mission critical connection had poor logical and physical diversity.

A robust, converged voice and data network with:

• better network utilization,
• higher bandwidth for the in-state network sites,
• greater reliability,
• network and interface standardization,
• fewer staff personnel needed to support the network,
• the ability to route traffic from any site to any site,
• VoIP service on its in-state network,
• real redundancy,
• traffic prioritization,
• a right-sized connection to corporate HQ,
• no increase to the current communications spend.

ACS created a single-network platform that is fully capable of supporting the client’s current and future voice and data needs. The in-state frame relay network was replaced with 1Mb MPLS circuits using Metro Ethernet handoffs to all 11 locations. Ethernet handoffs simplify the edge equipment and provide scalability without the need to dispatch personnel to the client site. Network Management and Monitoring is provided by the ACS NOCC (Network Operations Control Center) in Anchorage. Bandwidth can be changed dynamically at the ACS NOCC without changes to the client edge equipment. ACS’ network supports Cisco Discovery Protocol across these circuits enabling the client to view their edge equipment. A Cisco VOIP Call Manager was placed in the Anchorage network hub site for VOIP deployment statewide. MPLS-supported BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) allows the customer to route VOIP calls between remote sites without the full data stream having to backtrack to the Anchorage hub site, and allows for end to end QOS, traffic prioritization, scalability and reliable throughput.

The DS3 connection from the client’s Anchorage hub to Corporate HQ was replaced with a primary 20Mb circuit and a 20Mb failover circuit delivered via diverse Metro Ethernet end circuits and carried on ACS’ MPLS mesh network before traveling to the lower 48 via undersea cable. 99.999% uptime with the failover is achieved dynamically without manual intervention. The customer also attains full control over the traffic for priority queuing and the establishment of VLANS as needed.

The ACS solution for this mission critical link between Anchorage and Corporate HQ provides the client both logical and physical diversity:

Logical Diversity – Double redundant routers and switches are meshed together to achieve complete automatic failover between the Anchorage hub and Corporate HQ.

Physical Diversity – Diverse entrances are used to connect into the client’s Anchorage hub with Metro Ethernet over fiber. The fibers are then routed over MPLS through separate wire centers. Separate fiber paths with handoffs to a partner provider in the lower 48 are used to exit Alaska. (When completed, the ACS AKORN fiber combined with Northstar undersea cable will provide even higher physical diversity.)

Only ACS could deliver the diverse, multi-service network that supports all of the client’s communications needs. With the support of our highly trained engineers and technicians ACS effectively demonstrated to the client how the solution not only meets but also exceeds their objectives.

Network standardization and flexibility
The clutter of legacy frame relay, TDM and Internet VPN services was replaced by ACS’ statewide MPLS network and industry standard Ethernet handoffs. All customer edge equipment is now standardized with simple Ethernet interfaces with dynamic bandwidth.

Reduced support costs
The ACS solution enables the client to have a single type of network interface creating a standard that can be replicated across the globe. ACS provides remote services and keeps spares on site for repairs without the customer having to dispatch. ACS provides the client the ability to utilize Cisco Discovery Protocol to monitor the health of the equipment and the network. ACS augments that by providing network management and monitoring as well.

Increased network utilization and increased bandwidth without increased cost
The frame relay network was replaced with a diverse and reliable meshed MPLS in-state network with higher bandwidth. The link to corporate HQ now has diverse routing, increased reliability, and capacity for future growth. This was all accomplished for less than the cost of the legacy TDM DS3 circuit.

Increased network diversity and redundancy
The ACS solution provides diverse and redundant equipment, power, processors facilities, routes and termination points throughout the network for maximum network availability with no manual intervention. To date, the network has experienced 100% availability and uptime.

In summary, the ACS Metro Ethernet/MPLS upgrade provided new functionality, improved performance and throughput, and increased network reliability, with a monthly cost less than that of the single underutilized legacy DS3 circuit.