As our cities grow bigger and more crowded, the need for simpler, faster, more convenient, and more secure transportation is only increasing. The network is the key resource enabling this, but the growing complexity of the IT environment can put a spanner in the works, keeping even the most well-oiled organizations from achieving their goals. Let’s see how Extreme solutions help cities and municipalities across Europe get their metropolitan area networks back on track!
One of the primary functions of any major metropolitan area is to ensure safe, quality transportation infrastructure for the citizens and visitors. To that end, IT teams within local government structures are tasked with overseeing and controlling an overwhelming number of systems and devices, including traffic lights, public transportation, surveillance cameras, smart sensors etc.
That puts a significant strain on the network, not only in terms of bandwidth and capacity, but also reliability and resiliency. And when you’re running a 24x7x365 operation every potential disruption or drop in service can mean serious issues for operational continuity of the provided services.
“Every network disruption can potentially compromise the safety of the city and its residents”, says Anna Frankowska, Technical Security Systems Manager at the Crisis Management and Security Department (CMSD) within the City Hall of Poznań, Poland – an organizational unit responsible for the functioning of some of the key public services in the city, including traffic light controllers, surveillance cameras or traffic modelling sensors.
“(…) We needed a new mission critical network solution that would help us identify new efficiencies and automate manual processes.
Unfortunately, the more complex the network becomes, the harder it is to operate and the more fragile it becomes. Traditional networks are configured manually, switch by switch – even when you have a management system in place. Unfortunately, that means the more touch points in the network, the bigger the risk of a human error…
“(…) We needed a new mission critical network solution that would help us identify new efficiencies and automate manual processes”, explains Pierre-André Rulmont, VP, Information Systems at the Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company (STIB), operator of the rapid transit system in the Brussels-Capital Region.
Both organization required a new network solution that would eliminate single points of failure and ensure 24x7x365 critical operational uptime, while simultaneously delivering real-time automated control with a human oversight for increased efficiencies. In both cases this was achieved through the implementation of Extreme Fabric Connect.
Fewer touch points, fewer human errors, fewer problems
Contrary to traditional models, Extreme Fabric Connect, a shortest-path bridging technology, represents a single-protocol approach to networking. Based on the single ISIS-SPBM protocol standard with extensions that include Layer 2, Layer 3 and Multicast management, this solution eliminates the need for complex, slow and erratic protocols stacks such as PIM and DVMRP. But what does it mean in practice?
For one, connection between switches is easy and several interfaces can be connected from any switch to any switch for latency and load distribution purposes, without creating loops in a full mesh configuration. There is no need to configure VLANs on each of the switches en route – only at the edges. The solution creates connections and routes automatically and optimally, without human intervention, thus significantly reducing the risk of a human error.
What’s equally important for both Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company and Crisis Management and Security Department in Poznań, their fabric-based networks are fast to converge in case adverse network conditions occur. Moreover, the potential failure of single fiber connections does not impact the availability of services, as the latter are automatically rerouted through the shortest-path to other devices in the fabric network. With a sub-second failover of links and/or associated switching systems, Extreme Fabric Connect allowed to build far more robust and fully resilient networks in both cases.
Keeping an eye on everything, literally and figuratively
For metropolitan area networks like the ones in Brussels or Poznań, Closed Circuit Television Surveillance Systems are key to ensuring public safety. However, many organizations from the public sector that are using legacy network models are struggling to achieve a sufficient level of performance, reliability, and scalability to enable an issue-free operation of that kind of connected systems.
”Limitations of multicast routing in the network backbone proved to be a huge disadvantage of the previous solution. Given the rapidly-growing number of security cameras, it really started to impact the functioning of the city’s CCTV system”, says Anna Frankowska from the Crisis Management and Security Department in Poznań.
Limitations of multicast routing in the network backbone proved to be a huge disadvantage of the previous solution.
In both Brussels’ and Poznań’s cases, thanks to the ability to support multicast traffic across the fabric without needing to deploy complex legacy multicast protocols, Extreme Fabric Connect not only helped reduce the risk of an outage due to a configuration error, but also allowed the video surveillance networks to be deployed a lot faster and easier. A feat that is all the more important, the bigger the scale and the more complex the environment becomes.
For example, STIB’s current setup is capable of running around 5000 high-definition, IP-based video surveillance cameras, with the flexibility to move and change them on the fly, without additional, time-consuming manual configurations. Furthermore, the purpose-built core network has been designed to support up to 10,000 additional cameras (15,000 in total), giving STIB the much needed capacity for growth.
Of course, keeping passengers and staff on the transit system safe is one thing, but ensuring high cyber-security posture is quite another. Extreme Fabric Connects delivers on that end too, by enabling STIB’s network to run more than 20 fully isolated virtual networks (VRFs) for multiple mission-critical services, such as public address in the metro stations. The built-in hyper-segmentation and stealth topology capabilities, covered in more detail here and here, have helped STIB to implement a strong network segmentation that is fully compliant with requirements of the NIS2 directive.
To sum it up…
Improved system uptime is a goal in itself, but it also means freeing up precious IT resources to focus on more strategic tasks. Making use of network virtualization technology, Extreme Fabric Connect customers have the flexibility and agility to provision services, physically and logically, where they are needed for optimal efficiency. By utilizing automation to offload routine tasks traditionally carried out manually, STIB, CMSD and many other local government organizations across Europe are now empowered to unlock efficiencies in the day-to-day operations.
(…) In Extreme Networks, we found a trusted and reliable partner (...)
“I can wholeheartedly say that today we are the owners of a modern, automated and even more reliable network which enables us to provision services for our customers on an even higher level of quality”, Jarosław Androsiuk, ICT Maintenance and Administration Specialist at CMSD admits.
“(…) In Extreme Networks, we found a trusted and reliable partner that has helped us turn tomorrow's vision of a smart, automated and efficient metro network into a reality today”, Pierre-André Rulmont, VP, Information Systems at STIB sums up.
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