Transforming Mobile Backhaul Networks...

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) face increasing challenges if they are to maintain pace with surging data demand from owners of Smart Phones and Net Book devices. Traditional 2G/2.5G/3G networks were never designed to support the enormous wave of data generated by video and social network Web services. The transition to LTE, alongside increasingly powerful smart mobile devices, will exacerbate MNOs’ challenges and increase the risk of network brownouts, negatively impacting quality of service and customer satisfaction and increasing churn.

This voice-centric medium, based on complex telephony signalling and control planes, must be replaced with a packet and Web services-centric medium that is cheap to deploy, operate and maintain. Not only must this network cope with demand from new
mobile devices but also new services such as mobile access to cloud computing, software as a service, and location-based applications.

Intune Networks has developed a next-generation networking platform that delivers no less than ‘game changing transformation’. Optimised for mobile backhaul, the platform supports 3G and legacy services while enabling rapid transition to LTE. As both generations share a common backhaul network, Intune’s solution significantly lowers total cost of ownership (TCO), while allowing for the rapid deployment of revenue generating Web services that require high quality, on-demand network access.

The platform is built on Intune’s innovative and world-leading Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology. OPST combines distributed layer-2 packet switching with optical burst-mode transport in a single function, on a single platform. The result is lower capex, as less equipment is needed; and lower opex, as operations and control are greatly simplified. Crucially for today’s carriers, the OPST tunable network adapts in real time to bursty and unpredictable traffic. The result is a high level of performance that allows the MNO to guarantee QoS and SLAs with confidence. In addition, the platform is service- and protocol-agnostic, so able to carry multiple service types simultaneously.



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Freeing the Cloud - Intune Networks

Virtualisation has transformed the efficiency of the data centre, allowing IT resources and associated costs to be shared across multiple applications and users. If telecom carriers could simply extend this model into the network, they would provide the ideal environment for delivery of Cloud services. Drawing on a vast pool of reusable network resources, the user’s experience of the Cloud would then be indistinguishable from that of locally-accessed services.

The problem with this vision is that carrier network infrastructure is poorly suited to virtualisation. Telecom networks have developed over decades to meet a wide variety of needs. The constant evolution of technology and customer demands has encouraged growth of relatively rigid architectures requiring careful management and long-term planning. Specific equipment is often configured to deliver specific services, and so the separation of hardware and service required for virtualisation is difficult - if not impossible - to achieve.

This highly structured approach was appropriate in the past, but is now at odds with the Internet philosophy of instant response and limitless flexibility. This leaves carriers unable to take full advantage of the Cloud phenomenon and end users unable to enjoy the promised cost savings.

Intune Networks’ solution is the world’s first ‘whole network virtualisation’ platform. The iVX8000 is a fully programmable, services-oriented architecture capable of responding in real time to unpredictable and rapidly changing demand.

This White Paper explains how virtualisation, now commonplace in data centres, delivers the same benefits of resource and cost efficiency in the carrier network. Intune’s vastly simplified architecture is low cost to operate and easily configured to realise the potential of new revenue streams - such as Cloud services. Carriers that can both virtualise and programme their networks are empowered to deploy new services at unprecedented speed with lowest cost.



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Intune Networks Core Innovation - OPST

Optical Packet Switch & Transport (OPST) is a distributed optical switch fabric technology that uses ultra fast tuning lasers to provide fully meshed, any-to-any resilient port connectivity, and is service and data format agnostic.

Every port attached to the OPST fabric has a Fast Tuneable Laser (FTL) and Burst Mode Receiver (BMR) under that port’s local control. The system assigns a unique wavelength to each BMR, so as ingress packets are queued by class of service per wavelength. The laser is tuned in real-time (nanoseconds) and multi-service frames are launched to the chosen destination via the assigned wavelength. Each port, can therefore, send and receive frames to and from all other ports providing a fully distributed switching capability with no intervening OEO between source and destination.

The OPST architecture provides unequalled and elegant linear scalability as well as operational efficiency. As new ports are individually added to the optical mesh fabric the optical paths are discovered and the logical data paths are assigned non-blocking connectivity to the new ports on the OPST meshed fabric.

iVX8000 has the unique ability to respond dynamically to changes in network service traffic demands while maintaining guaranteed class of service commitments. Access to this dynamic infrastructure is fully programmable and available via the Restful Web Services interface.



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