Case of dual-network dual-speed MAN construction

　　（I） Background

　　In 2015, China Telecom Wuhan Branch launched “Telecom Campus Broadband Dual-Speed Network” business, which realized an external access speed of 2M and an internal network access speed of 20M by all users of campus network bandwidth within the area and became popular with the users of universities and colleges.

　　This dual-speed campus MAN project covered multiple universities and colleges in Wuhan. Phase I realized the network access demands of more than 500 thousand users of universities and colleges in Wuhan. The project upgraded and reformed the existing network, which helped China Telecom Wuhan Brand quickly occupy the campus market and have stronger competitiveness in campus broadband market.

　　Moreover, the project served as China's largest traffic control system established with the intelligent pipeline technology and also the first “dual-speed MAN” built with such technology.

 

　　（II） Needs and challenges

　　China Telecom Wuhan Branch had two urgent problems to solve in the process of upgrading and reforming the campus network of universities and colleges:

　　1. Lack of intelligent awareness of traffic: to realize dual speed network, it is necessary to solve the traffic judgment of internal/external networks technically at the first and control the user bandwidth. However, the operators were largely lack of intelligent awareness in business;

 

　　2. The terminal of campus telecom network was unable to access education resources: it meant the educational network failed to interwork with the telecom network, which became a big obstacle for the telecom network to enter the campus network. Where the external network failed to access the educational network resources, the server would reject the access request of the users, when it found that the source IP address of the traffic was the IP address of external network （the telecom network）. Therefore, external telecom network was unable to interwork with the educational network resources of the campus network, such as library and course selection system.

 

　　（III） GreeNet solutions

　　In 2015, according to the abovementioned needs, GreeNet proposed the dual-network dual speed solutions.

　　The equipment for solution deployment was NetDominator 20000, GreeNet's 10-Gigabit NetDominator Traffic Control System. The equipment was deployed between the switch and BRAS by means of serial deployment to build the dual-speed network.

　　The advantage of serial connection is that all packets can be processed and controlled, and the traffic control is direct and effective. Serial connection requires to deploy bypass protection equipment. In case of power failure or malfunction of DPI equipment, it can automatically switch to the bypass state, that means the restoration of original data will not affect normal communication。

 

　　1. DPI realizes intelligent identification of internal/external network traffic: NetDominator application's layer identification, traffic analysis and packet control technologies can precisely identify network applications, handle and differentiate the access of internal and external networks, and allocate the bandwidth accordingly.

 

　　2. NAT realizes dual-network interworking: when the dual-network interworking plan hasn't been deployed, the external network is unable to access the resources of educational network. When the network traffic comes to the education network server of universities and colleges, the NetDominator system will judge whether such traffic is from internal network in specific ways and will not reject the access request from the users of internal networks. NAT can realize the interworking between telecom network and educational network.

 

　　3. Traffic analysis diagram gives a visual representation: the analysis diagrams of NetDominator system can translate the application traffic by means of diagram and charts. The system provides the network administrators with various diagrams, including real-time traffic statistics charts, concurrent user statistics charts, internal network statistical ranking list, website access ranking list, network application ranking list and so on.

 

　　4. Support IPv6 network upgrading: moreover, thanks to NetDominator system's NAT support capability, it can also help build IPv6 network, solve transition problems of IPv4 and IPv6, and blaze the trail for IPv6 pilot network after the dual-speed campus MAN network is successfully built.

 

　　（IV） Service effect

　　1. After the dual-speed campus MAN was successfully built, the internal network speed of campus telecom system had been improved to 20M （2015）. It not only increased the utilization rate of network resources but also realized the sustainable growth of network users.

 

　　2. More than 40 universities and colleges under the coverage of the dual-speed campus network will form the largest dual-speed network among telecom operations in China. Its internal network speed will reach an unprecedented height that the three major telecom operators haven't seen before. It has greatly improved the market competitiveness of China Telecom Wuhan Branch and has laid a solid foundation for the follow-up market expansion.

 

　　3. Relying on the hardware platform built by dual-speed network, China Telecom Wuhan Branch can build IPv6 pilot network and realize can help the campus MAN realize a transition from IPv4 to IPv6, thus to provide a template for future network-wide IPv6 transition.