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Media converters troubleshoot network: technology gives Internet access provider flexibility - Testing and Diagnostics - Internap services

Communications News, Jan, 2002

Internap created a platform to intelligently route data over the Internet's major backbones from a single connection to one of its own service points. As an Internet access provider, it has deployed a total of 37 service points in major U.S. cities, as well as having an international presence in London, Amsterdam and Tokyo.

Unlike some Internet access providers that randomly choose public network access points or private peering points, Internap's routing technology sends customer data along the optimal path. For its nearly 900 customers, the optimizing effects of its proprietary network architecture and advanced routing technologies dramatically boost performance. In fact, Internap recently made available a Web-based portal through which customers can compare not only its performance metrics to the guaranteed levels in its service-level agreement but also its performance to all the major Internet backbones.

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Major companies served by Internap include NASDAQ, Colgate-Palmolive, Datek Online, Earthlink, Travelocity.com and many others, including local and regional ISPs, which expect high-performance Internet connectivity services in order to run mission-critical, Internet-based applications, or to use the Internet as a viable alternative to traditional private networking platforms, such as frame relay, ATM or private lines.

Internap had customers in its colocation facilities that wanted to connect to its equipment, but distance requirements were a limiting factor. The company typically connected its customers via 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps Ethernet over inexpensive copper. That proved challenging in its larger facilities with the 100-meter distance limitation for Ethernet and Fast Ethernet. Therefore, the company evaluated available options in order to expand its business and continue servicing existing customers.

Internap determined that deploying fiber was the best way to overcome the distance limitations presented by copper cabling. Fiber provides several advantages to Ethernet and Fast Ethernet networks. The most common use is to overcome distance limitations of coaxial and twisted-pair copper topologies. Fiber can extend these distances with multimode fiber, providing 2,000 meters, and single-mode fiber supporting five kilometers in half-duplex environments, and much more in full-duplex installations.

Fiber-optic cabling is not a panacea, however. One of its most significant challenges is the cost of termination. Because of the need for perfect connections, splices and connections must be carefully cut and then polished to preserve the optical characteristics. The second problem is that legacy equipment and some critical networking equipment does not offer a fiber interface. Those that do can be cost prohibitive.

By using copper-to-fiber media converters, fiber can be connected to almost any legacy environment, networking equipment or desktop computer. Media converters are devices (usually palm size) that take in signals from one media type and send them out on another media type, making the cable "look" the same. These passive devices increase networking flexibility, while decreasing networking costs.

When Internap knew that media conversion was the appropriate application, it evaluated and tested three leading products for six weeks. Media converters from Minneapolis-based Transition Networks (www.transition.com), eventually were selected, including Transition's 18-slot Point System chassis Ethernet and Fast Ethernet media converters. Both offer multimode and single-mode optics, depending on the distance to the customer location. At the customers' site, stand-alone media converters were used to interface with their equipment. Fiber runs were used between the media converters and the chassis to overcome the distance issues that copper presented.

To maintain the integrity of the network, Internap required full redundancy across the full network of service points, with hot-swappable cards and redundant power supplies, and an option for AC or DC power. In the event of failure, the redundant equipment would take over the full load. In addition, Internap kept a third, hot-swappable chassis on hand, so it could swap out and repair any faulty equipment, which maintained a network of full redundancy.

Additionally, Internap needed some way to know about trouble at the customer site. If a link was down, the company needed to know in order to correct the problem quickly. Transition had a feature built into its converters that gives Internap insight into the network status.

"The passing of far-end link status was the most important feature for us," says Internap's national facility project manager, Dean Varton. "That was one of the big deciding factors. If the customer's copper side goes down, the fiber is still up. Without that feature, we would never see that copper side down. Now, we can alert customers to it, and we can be more proactive with our customers."

The solution's Fast Ethernet cards include Link Pass Through, which alerts the network manager to a problem on the network. If one of the converter's receive circuits loses a link, it disables the transmission on the opposite circuit. This propagates the failure down the network so Internap can see the failure on the equipment. So, if a fiber link is lost between converters, the downstream equipment will drop the copper link.

Technology Industry

Media converters troubleshoot network: technology gives Internet access provider flexibility - Testing and Diagnostics - Internap services

Communications News, Jan, 2002

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