The power to do more: faster, cost-efficiently and more securely

14 June 2023

With the new and advanced networking technologies from Extreme in place, Elektro Celje d. d. – a major electricity distribution company in Slovenia – has everything to enable a reliable supply of electricity and sustainable development services for the customers. Learn more about this exciting modernization!

As one of the five electricity distribution companies in Slovenia, Elektro Celje d. d. plays a key role in the development of the country's cost-effective distribution network to ensure high-quality and reliable supply of electricity to consumers. The company provides for the administration, management and operation of the distribution system, as well as maintenance, construction and renovation of power distribution lines and devices in an area that covers 4,345 km2… or, to put it in a more practical context, as much as 22% of the country's surface area. The entire length of electricity infrastructure, through which more than 173,000 customers are supplied, represents the second longest network in the country.

Needless to say, proper planning, administration, management, and operation of the ICT infrastructure is crucial for the smooth, reliable, and secure functioning of the company’s electricity distribution system. With a relatively small team, Elektro Celje’s IT department has to be able to manage an entire spectrum of both telecommunications and cybersecurity systems, from their development, up to implementation and daily operation. This infrastructure includes optical network, Ethernet network, IP/MPLS network in several redundant rings, digital radio system for voice and narrowband data connections, telephone system with a call center and CRM system for managing customer relationships, a microwave link system, a corporate video conferencing system, and a wireless network, among other things.

Few people probably imagine what our electricity distribution ICT network is like. It comprises more than fifty telecommunication nodes in several dozen business facilities, it is a network of extremely large dimensions/loading gauges.

Damjan Bobek, Head of Telecommunications Department, Elektro Celje d.d.

As one can guess, over the years, the complexity of Elektro Celje’s telecommunications system increased, resulting in a number of challenges which could be boiled down to one: a diminishing controllability of the network.

The primary challenge lying in the legacy network solution

In Elektro Celje’s case, Ethernet technology plays a pivotal role for the operation of ICT system, as it enables high availability and security, as well as supports all key services. However, the natural technological development required careful consideration regarding network and security planning, since upgrading the existing technology and installed equipment was no longer a viable option. The risk that over ten-year-old technology or equipment could fail at any time was too high, and it was necessary to upgrade or overhaul the system. An additional motive were the maintenance costs of the built-in advanced devices of a higher price range, which increased rapidly as the devices aged.

With years and experience, we have learned that it is necessary to focus on technology that will enable high availability and security, which was initially possible with Ethernet. Eventually we used everything the Ethernet has to offer, namely network segmentation, implementation of security mechanisms and so on. Therefore, we started to think about a new solution that would ensure that system and routine operations would be as few as possible and as simple as possible. At the same time the new solution had to offer advanced security, which is what we expect from modern networks.

Tomi Kolar, expert in network technologies and cybersecurity at Elektro Celje d. d.

The company reached out to its long-term partner Smart Com d.o.o. to acquire critical support in the development, planning and gradual implementation of a new technology that would address all of the experienced challenges and help reach the identified goals, with as little disruption to Elektro Celje’s operations as possible.

The key direction: moving towards fabric network

Working in a close cooperation, the engineers from both Elektro Celje and Smart Com laid out a comprehensive migration plan that was subsequently carried out in several manageable phases.

It is not easy to determine the migration date; it is necessary to coordinate it, because you cannot shut down the network, since the network is alive. Dispatchers must manage the situation 24/7, have insight and take appropriate action if there is a power outage. That's why the implementation is being carried out carefully, step by step. Furthermore, one cannot simulate the entire network in the lab to make sure that everything works as planned, and then just go into production. We had to implement certain things on the way, in a live network. We didn't know if on Monday, when 500 employees come to work, everything would operate as it should.

Aljaž Kmecl, expert in network technologies and cybersecurity, Elektro Celje d. d.

After careful consideration and analysis of options and a maturity check in terms of capabilities, efficiency and increasing the level of cybersecurity, fabric technology (which basically still uses Ethernet/IP protocols) was deemed to be the best solution for upgrading the company’s Ethernet network.

In case of critical infrastructure environments, such as electricity distribution companies, the ICT network must provide high availability of services to users, high efficiency and robustness in the management and operation of the network, as well as security mechanisms that are built into the very foundations of the network architecture. Due to the criticality of the system, electricity distribution companies beside IT systems operate and maintain separate OT systems, which are not inclined to very frequent changes, as this might lead to too many disturbances and affect the reliability and continuous functioning of services. Fabric technology, which relies on a high level of automation in the network architecture itself, enables simplified and efficient network management and operations tasks, especially for business (IT) segments. Due to its reliability, maturity, standardization and ease of operation, it is also suitable for operational technology (OT) segments

Peter Ceferin, CTO of Smart Com d.o.o.

The key decision was reached to build the foundation of the new system on the industry-leading, Extreme Fabric Connect solution, in conjunction with the building blocks of automation and management.

Behind the scenes of the new setup

The first phase of the modernization project assumed the refresh of the core of the network in the LAN segment. Switches which were 10 years old and older were replaced by fabric-enabled, core switches VSP8404 from Extreme Networks. At the location with a large number of users, Extreme X460-G2 edge and aggregation (access) switches are connected to the core switches, which represent the backbone of the LAN network. The latter are intended to connect users (across the floors of the administrative building) and servers and implement functionalities to ensure cybersecurity at the network level, such as the 802.1x authentication mechanism and network access control.

In the primary and backup data centers in the town of Dravograd, Elektro Celje has dedicated switches for connecting server systems. Due to the compatibility of most of the access switches from Extreme Networks with fabric technology, switches for connecting users are expected to migrate to Fabric Connect in the future as well. The Fabric Attach functionality currently enables the customer to use built-in switches that are not yet based on fabric technology and can be connected to the network or to switches that are in the core and already run on fabric technology.

Higher network stability through network automation

With the described network design, the company has increased the degree of automation in the network and simplified management, which in turn drove better efficiency and speed of performing administrative tasks in the management and functioning of the IP/Ethernet network. This is reflected perfectly in the way the most basic kinds of services in a telecommunications network are established. For example, significantly fewer steps are now necessary to establish a VLAN service since it is created at the edge of the network. The built-in automation mechanisms in between ensure adequate connectivity via shortest path bridging.

This translates into a number of benefits, starting with high network availability. The automatic redirection of all traffic to a backup path in the event of an error means that the service is always working from the end user’s perspective. With a small team managing a network, transparency and efficiency are very important so that routine tasks are automated as much as possible, without manual intervention in the core of the network, which reduces the possibility of configuration errors to practically zero level and thus prevents the possibility of service downtime.

Users probably do not notice the difference at first or at all. It is essential for them that the services for which we are responsible function smoothly or that they can carry out their work process without interruption. They do not concern themselves with what is in the background. This means that the communication network is working flawlessly. We, who manage the network, are now able to perform this task significantly easier.

Tomi Kolar, expert in network technologies and cybersecurity at Elektro Celje d. d.

Doing everything faster and more flexibly means saving more time and money

Another significant value coming from switching to Extreme Fabric Connect technology is the fact that the IT team at Elektro Celje is able to introduce new functionalities and mechanisms quickly, whenever the need arises. This regards mainly the large number of different services, users and cybersecurity mechanisms, which have become crucial for the reliable, available and safe provisioning of services to the technological processes of managing the power network.

What’s also important here, the new solution allowed Elektro Celje to achieve significant cost savings, since such a network requires significantly fewer resources in both the investment and the operational phase. In addition, with the strategic decision that all user systems are based on IP/Ethernet technology, Elektro Celje has achieved network uniformity and, consequently, further reduced costs.

We use 10G between the nodes inside the facilities, especially in the data center. In between the distribution stations which represent our backbone (the network that runs from the Austrian to the Croatian border through Celje), or for our OT services, which do not need that much bandwidth, we use 1G. We could have switched to a 10G ring a decade ago, but there is no need for that, and we prefer to invest the funds elsewhere. For now, 1G is enough

Damjan Bobek, Head of Telecommunications Department, Elektro Celje d.d.

A built-in network security

The network also enables a higher level of cybersecurity as it is built into the network level, and thus already at the very edge of the network so the IT team can provide greater resistance to advanced cyber threats. Hyper-segmentation is enabled, and the physical level of the network is completely separated from the service level, making the topology of the network and devices invisible to users and, most importantly, the potential attackers.

To top it all off, the network in all segments – WAN, LAN and data center – is administered and managed by a unified umbrella system for control and management called ExtremeCloud IQ. The solution allows Elektro Celje's IT team to easily manage the network and users via an intuitive graphical interface, as well as access policies at the very edge of the network. The latter is ensured by the functionality of the central management of network access control (NAC).

With the help of the control system, the establishment (configuration) and control of the network, as well as the manipulation of services at the edge of the network, are further simplified. In addition to the automatic establishment of a service when a certain user connects to the network, this includes a mechanism that also automatically deletes the service in the event that the user disconnects from the network. Consequentially, a significantly higher level of security is ensured at the edge of the network since the connection points do not have any service set in advance, which means that a potential attacker who would connect to such a point without authorization, cannot enter the network.

As a cybersecurity expert, I can comfortably say that these types of connections are significantly more secure.

Tomi Kolar, expert in network technologies and cybersecurity at Elektro Celje d. d.

The way to go

In a nutshell, the combination of fabric-enabled switches with the ExtremeCloud solution enabled an effective control of the network which was facing an ever-increasing number of user requirements and a rapidly-developing array of various applications and systems.

Today, Elektro Celje d. d. owns a very reliable and robust network, and its teams are always acquainted with the current state of the network, while its users enjoy greater safety and smooth communication. The new setup essentially provides high network services availability, and above all else, higher level of cybersecurity while also enabling the introduction of services according to the principles of sustainable development for a wide range of different user systems.

Peter Ceferin, CTO of Smart Com d.o.o.

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The case of Elektro Celje shows perfectly that if you want to simplify managing as well as planning and building a flexible and resilient network to support the digitization of business operations and the introduction of modern services, a network infrastructure based on Extreme Fabric Connect is the way to go.

About Smart Com d.o.o

With a team of highly trained professionals, state-of-the-art information technology and more than 30 years of experience that enable us to understand the ICT world specificities, we develop solutions and services to fully address the technological, process and business requirements in the ICT field.

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