Remote - Summer 2012 - (Page 14)

Applications - Feature Building Networks in Pakistan’s Extreme Environments Puts Remote Management to the Test Hamid Nawaz, Chief Operating Officer Supernet Limited Pakistan presents unique challenges and opportunities for the telecommunications providers in the region. The opportunity is apparent, as Pakistan has an estimated population of more than 177 million all located in an area that’s about twice the size of the state of California, and a communications infrastructure that continues to struggle to keep up with the growing demand for mobile bandwidth. Network operators, however, are presented with challenges, both politically and geographically, when building out and managing networks that straddle mountainous hard-scrabble terrain and the physical issues in reaching the far flung pockets of population in the south west of Pakistan. Supernet Limited is a satellite network service provider and systems integrator located in Pakistan that specializes in providing end-to-end satellite based GSM backhaul networks for the telecommunications companies in the region. They’ve assisted four of the major telecommunications service providers in building out their networks and are providing the management infrastructure to remotely operate these networks. Over the past few years, Supernet has installed more than 300 remote facilities in Pakistan, and has experienced and overcome many of the challenges of remotely managing telecommunications networks in Compass Overview of Pakistan Remote Site extreme environments. While some of the obstacles encountered are unique to Pakistan’s climate and topography, most of the issues are common to managing any remote facility, whether it is a satellite earth station, microwave towers or a broadcast transmitter. Coupled with the diverse and demanding geographic conditions in Pakistan, there are certain other challenges such as sites not being easily accessible, power often not readily available and the high cost in both time and expense of visiting sites that can often require specialized equipment. To get to a site from a repair depot can often take most of the day and proper equipment for performing repairs is essential, as there are no locally available replacements. Supernet’s goal is to build out affordable, highly reliable networks that provide carriers high quality of service and low cost of ownership, where the numerous sites comprising their networks can be remotely managed and remotely recovered from most common problems. In the event that a site could not be remotely recovered from a failure, a remote site management solution would be used to ensure that when a technician was dispatched, they were fully prepared with the proper equipment to recover the site. To make this a reality, an operator in the network operations center would need as much visibility into the remote site as possible. For the GSM backhaul, this consists of an interface into the satellite RF equipment (modems, converters, power amplifiers and antenna controllers) mostly via a proprietary serial protocol. Additionally, some of the devices and the network components such as routers and Ethernet switches communicate using the SNMP communications standard over the LAN at the remote site. Finally, the remote site solution would need to manage the facility alarms, which include UPS power levels, generator fuel levels, door open/close status and temperature readings, which in some instances communicate through serial or SNMP methods, but may also be via a contact closure interface. 14 www.RemoteMagazine.com Often times the reason why sites go down is not related to the RF equipment itself, but due to the systems supporting the facility, such as a generator not having enough fuel to sustain the site through a power outage. This makes the monitoring of those systems critical. If the operator at the Network Operations Center (NOC) is aware of the condition, they can arrange for the site to be refueled prior to losing service, or re-route the traffic to another location. That means the software resident at the remote sites needs to be flexible enough to support a wide variety of protocols including serial and SNMP. Researching the available options indicated that many solutions could not or did not support the full breadth of data points available from the interface, only a sub-set. With equipment being remotely controlled only, operators would require full monitoring and control capabilities, allowing them to remotely recover a site, if possible, before dispatching a technician. If an onsite visit was required, they would need all the information available to determine the root cause of the failure, so as to avoid a partial or incomplete restoration of the service. From a hardware perspective this presented the unique problem of trying to establish the physical interface into all the equipment (servers, network hubs, serial port hardware and contact closure equipment) in a confined area where space was at a premium. The remote management solution’s hardware platform would need to allow communication using Ethernet to SNMP equipment, and on-board serial ports to communicate to the serial equipment, as well as contact closures for the facility and other non-SNMP or serial alarms at the site. Technicians dispatched to the sites would need to access the remote manager for trouble shooting and analysis. Ideally, the remote unit would include a separate Ethernet port on the front panel for the technician to locally connect a laptop or PC, so they could obtain the status and alarm information and control the equipment using a browser-based GUI rather than having to navigate the equipment’s front panels. Since the units were remote, entry to the system needed to be over HTTPs, a secure HTTP protocol version, with password protected log-in to prevent any unauthorized access to the remote controller. The next obstacle to overcome was getting the data securely from the remote site to the NOC so the operators could manage the remote sites and ensure the server at the NOC was properly in synchronization with the status at the remote location. To accomplish this, TCP/IP or PPP over TCP/ IP protocols were required, which would validate that the messages sent between a remote and the NOC were actually received. These communications should also be encrypted to ensure there was no unauthorized access into the system. This often had to occur over the satellite hop between the remote site and the NOC, with its inherent delays and limited bandwidth (by design), since the bulk of the network’s capacity was allocated to the GSM traffic. To ensure that the operators were updated promptly when events or a status changed at the remote locations, as well as to conserve bandwidth, the remote sites would only send data to the NOC when a change occurred. So as the remote manager polled the equipment out at the site, it would only http://www.RemoteMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Remote - Summer 2012

Remote - Summer 2012
Remote Monitoring in Data Centers Progresses with Emerging DCiM Systems
Multi-Tenant Power Metering and Management
Addressing Cyber Security Vulnerabilities in the Power Grid Infrastructure
Unbreakable SCADA Security: Protecting Hydrocarbon Facilities And Pipeline Networks
Building Networks in Pakistan’s Extreme Environments Puts Remote Management to the Test
In the Flow - Water Treatment & Distribution at Super-Rimiez Plant
SCADA
Networking
Security
Onsite Power
Environmental Monitoring
Industry News
Reducing Maintenance and Energy Costs of Substations with Automation

Remote - Summer 2012