Replacing Virtual Tunnels Offshore With MPLS Over Satellite
So where might you encounter one of the first MPLS over satellite offerings? Try an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. An oil rig is like a beehive except the bees wear lots of different hats. In other words, these marine outposts are often swarming with lots of workers who represent several different companies. In order to address the telecom needs of multiple groups at a single site, Houston-based Caprock Services Corp. has implemented its IP Xpress Network, and selected MPLS over satellite as the core for its VPN offering.
"Today, Caprock operates a hybrid SCPC network in both symmetrical and asymmetrical configurations," says Steve Wheelis, director of product engineering at Caprock Services. "Currently in the final stages of review are the dynamic bandwidth managed networks which will be the underlying transport backbone allowing for much more flexibility and functionality of the service offerings."
Caprock Services begins the new year with its first fully operational MPLS over satellite customer, and tests are underway with another customer at press time.
"MPLS and IP have made life easier for us. There is no need to set up an exponential number of virtual tunnels," says Wheelis. "We also found that with MPLS over satellite, we can do much more at our network operations center in Houston."
As we noted earlier, using MPLS to support IP QoS is not uncommon in terrestrial networks. It represents the attempt to capture the best attributes of IP routing and the QoS advantages of either Frame Relay or ATM switching. MPLS is also a useful tool for traffic shaping or engineering, and it is sometimes referred to as a layer 2-1/2 solution meaning it rides between the datalink or switching mode which includes the MAC sublayer, and the network layer which incorporates IP addressing . If there are a lot of other companies running or attempting to run MPLS over satellite, we are unaware of them.
"Our primary goal is network flexibility. Caprock has accomplished this by offering two mechanisms to provide dynamic network configuration and provisioning, MPLS and traditional VPN tunnels" says Wheelis. "A second goal was to centralize the network control and administration. Another goal was to create a network where all services converged at layer 3, or IP. By running all services at IP, you create a ubiquitous network in which telephony, video and data become appliances plugged into the same infrastructure.
"MPLS allows customers to attach to Caprock's network either at Layer 2 or 3 and then be put into an MPLS network implemented for just that customer. The customer can directly access their private network at any of Caprock's sites on demand," he adds. "The network assignments are done dynamically and appear to be plug and play. The network knows to assign this particular device to the customers network via the MAC address that is associated with the customers phone, PC, or any other IP network appliance."
Traditional VPN tunnels are available for customers that either have their own VPN infrastructure, or wish to use the Internet for their VPN mechanism.
With the new network, all services can be provisioned centrally, as long as the appropriate hardware exists. Therefore, when additions, moves and changes occur, a simple plug in is required as long as the user is registered in the system," says Wheelis. "The Layer 3 network concept yields a much more cost-effective network where maintenance and administration is eased since there is only one network involved. This ensures that QoS is implemented to guarantee priority voice and video traffic, and Committed Information Rates as per customer requirements."
HDTV Challenges Network Managers
Readers have heard talk about compression breakthroughs before when the low bandwidth alternative to MPEG-2 known as MPEG-4 first started to roll-out in the late 1990's.
"The Advanced Simple Profile which is part of MPEG-4 did not provide enough improvement in efficiency to induce broadcasters to adopt an alternative compression scheme. This all changes with H.264. Satellite broadcasters know they need it, but not when," says Robinett.
It all comes down to increasing demand being placed on a finite amount of satellite capacity, and this affects DBS and FSS operators alike. However, the timetable may not be driven by technology alone. Market variables and regulatory decisions on significant pending matters like dual carriage may set the wheel in motion for an industrywide adoption of H.264 sooner than we think.
"A lot of uncertainty surrounds the issue of dual must carry. Will the DBS service providers be forced by the FCC to comply with the must carry provisions that the DBS industry has battled against for the past two years or so?" asks Robinett.
In a nutshell, the DBS service providers are holding their breath. If they are required to carry the growing list of local HDTV stations as full HDTV offerings, all bets are off.
Robinett describes a potential migration to H.264 as a much easier transition and a much less dramatic leap than what the satellite and broadcast TV industries experienced when they jumped from analog to digital MPEG-2 transmissions.
"Because of the problem of what to do about the millions and millions of MPEG-2 equipped set-top boxes already in place, among other things, H.264 has to be backwards compatible," says Robinett. "You can mix H.264 with an existing MPEG-2 stream, so that for example, you might wind up with a cluster of SDTV MPEG-2 channels with one or more H.264 HDTV channels The MPEG-2 legacy decoders will simply ignore the H.264 stream."
Satellite NMS: Lots Of Action On The Water
This NMS snapshot will end with a quick look at a couple of recent exercises at sea. Ships and satellites work well together, and lots of folks are making sure that this partnership is in great shape going forward. However, the lessons here are quite relevant to what is happening onshore with respect to NMS as well.
Two significant U.S. Navy warfighting concepts play a key roll here. FORCEnet centers on knowledge superiority, and, the distribution and sharing of information across the battlefield, while Expeditionary Pervasive Sensing is a warfighting concept involving vast numbers of sensors distributed over the battlefield.
"The two concepts must work together. In order to command and control (C2) and move the data from vast numbers of sensors and turn that data into information and deliver it as knowledge, we need communications, networking and services to support on a scale of that order," says Guy Purser, director of engineering and director of modeling and simulations at the Naval Warfare Development Center (NWDC).
"We believe the agent-based computing technology holds great potential for the command and control of large numbers of sensors and as a means of "harvesting" the data into useful information. We have also experimented with the agents in ways that draws on the information and delivers it as knowledge to the war fighter," he adds.
The Navy plans to populate the battlefield with all types of sensors, doing so with some in very large numbers. Among other things, this presents a number of over the horizon communications challenges.
"The NWDC is looking at unique topologies. We have to develop both the network and the agent-based computing to support this pervasive battlefield information," says Purser.
In the process, Ku-band is under intense scrutiny here due both to the enhanced bandwidth advantage it enjoys over X-band, and the global footprint advantage over Ka-band. In many respects, the two above-mentioned Navy's network-centric concepts mirror a telco with its blend of long haul or trunking, metro and local networks. With respect to strategic, tactical and operational networking options, NWDC is treating networks and networking--and bandwidth as a component of that--as a war fighting resource for future war fighting concepts such as FORCEnet. The Navy is beginning to do that as well.
"Just as owning the night was the high ground of the 1990's, the next high ground is the information advantage," says Purser. "The current topology where bandwidth is controlled by the Navy Communications Station (NCS) may not be the best way to do things. In the future, the local commander may well wind up controlling that resource. This current way of doing things also involves a degree of vulnerability that we may want to rethink due to the fact that everything flows back to the a single point at the NCS."
The Satellite and Wireless Networking Section (SWNS) of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been tasked by the NWDC to examine and identify a number of commercial high bandwidth satellite options for the U.S. Navy. A series of Fleet Battle Experiments (FBE) have been used to test these satellite systems with the latest in the series, Fleet Battle Experiment-Juliet (FBE-J), taking place last summer off the coast of California. The FBE is a concept-base experimentation process that examines a number of issues besides satellite networking.
"NRL has been taking another look at Ku-band, and where satellite networks are headed," says Michael Rupar who heads the SWNS. "The use of small aperture terminals, and the ability to stand up independent of the ship's link are both important. There is limited room for any new antennas aboard the smaller deck ships in particular, and there are electromagnetic interference issues as well."
Future relatively shallow-draft, high-speed warships in the 2,000 ton to 3,000 ton range possibly including trimarans will be taking shape as part of the Littoral Combat Ship Program, for example. These swift ships are going to require flexible and highly reliable satellite links.
In FBE-J, throughput rates in the 14 Mbs range were achieved using Sea Tel antennas, which have been used in four successive FBE's. The Navy appears quite favorably impressed by Sea Tel's overall reliability. Ku-band capacity on the SES Americom AMC 4 satellite was handled by Globecast. TDMA and FDMA networks were operating simultaneously on a shared basis over Viasat's Linkway system. Comtech EF Data SDM 8000's and 2020's were used as well. NRL uses its own software solution for M&C.
"This was the largest pipe ever used in an FBE. NRL ran full duplex with a dual interdependent hubs onboard the USS Coronado (AGF-11) and onshore at the Fleet Combat Training Center Pacific. Four other ships participated as well including the Lockheed Martin Sea SLICE, and the high speed catamaran known as Joint Venture (HSV-X1)," Rupar says. "In the prior FBE, NRL hubbed off a ship for the first time."
With the shift to more littoral spaces such as the Persian Gulf, access to adequate Ku-band coverage is not an issue. Rupar and his team are well aware of the effects of rain fade, and they can throttle back if need be. The goal is to keep bits moving.
According to Purser, during the upcoming FBE-Kilo, the focus will be on more integration of agent based computing into the command and control arena.
"We will improve our networking and management services such as QoS. We will also take a good first look into mobile networking using a secure 802.11 network for the U.S. Marine Corps, using it as an ad hoc networking mode for ship line of sight communications," says Purser. "We are getting at the issues of how we will network the fleet in the years ahead with the DoD Teleport capabilities."
The U.S. Coast Guard is steaming ahead on a parallel course. In November, for example, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Neah Bay headed across Lake Erie with a Globalstar link, opening the door to a new era in mobile networking as it went. This team effort involved USCG, Cisco Systems Global Defense and Satellite Group, the NASA Glenn Research Center, Western Datacom and Scientific Research Corp.
A Cisco 3640 Router aboard the Neah Bay was used to seamlessly and continuously move IP traffic from an 802.11(b) wireless LAN/WAN out of Cleveland over to the Globalstar constellation with no reconfiguration of the router once the Neah Bay was some15 miles offshore.
"The ability to plug the router in wherever the user wants it greatly reduces the cost of mobility. This enables the user to access straight IP traffic, email, VoIP and multicasts," says Cisco's Shell. "We could do 1 to 1.5 Mbs over the Cisco Aironet wireless 802.11b Ethernet LAN, and 64 kbs over Globalstar."
Hybrid wireless satellite networking is something that we have devoted lots of attention to in Via Satellite. While the fact that Globalstar's low bandwidth satellite link cannot match the performance of a Cisco Aironet wireless 802.11b Ethernet LAN comes as no surprise, readers should be paying particular attention to the fact that the 802.11b LAN extends no further than 15 to 16 miles offshore.
Staying One Step Ahead
With industrywide consolidation a fact of life, NMS has to scale accordingly. Injecting a possible breakthrough in digital video compression along with a possible growing role for MPLS over satellite into the mix does not simplify the process either.
What is happening is that relatively finite pools of bandwidth are being pulled in different directions. Regardless of what is doing the pulling or where it is going, the industry has to anticipate the forces at work in order to keep one step ahead. NMS has to be the embodiment of that anticipation, in terms of user-friendliness, scale and capabilities.
The good news is that the tools are out on the bench, ready to go. NMS vendors have worked hard to put a lot of power and precision at their customers' fingertips. The network in question can be managed in a number of different ways, and whether done on a fingertip basis or an automated basis, there appears to be no excuse today for lost bandwidth and lost revenues.
Peter J. Brown is Via Satellite's Senior Multimedia & Homeland Security Editor. He lives on Mount Desert Island, ME.
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