In 1994, my company installed its first LAN, covering two main buildings in the company head office campus in Kenya. This was a token ring network using 3Com Superstack TR II hubs with a fibre backbone linking the two buildings. The original number of users connected was less than 100.
Within five years, the number of users had grown to more than 400, and the number of applications supported on the LAN had more than tripled. The 16-MB token ring network became a bottleneck and could not cope.
We had also hoped to link up to the network users in other buildings who needed e-mail communication. But the token ring technology was no longer being developed, and future prospects for expansion were discouraging.
To address the growing demands, we decided to install an ATM backbone based on Bay Networks Centillion 100 switches. The existing token ring hubs hooked directly to the ATM switches, and all new connections were done using Ethernet technology. We standardised the cabling infrastructure to Siemon CAT 5e system, which made it possible to run any technology for both voice and data, with no changes whatsoever.
But how did we make it all work? By identifying our needs and constraints, using third party resources to help us get the plan in motion, and finalising and approving all plans in advance to be sure all parties involved had a clear understanding of what needed to happen when.
Voice communication
We had an OKI NE 1200 PABX that catered to the entire head office and also two other stations (six and eight kilometres away) via long distance extensions. The administrative task of maintaining these extensions was massive.
The sales office, 16 km away, was served by a newly installed Alcatel 4400 PABX. An OKI NE30 and Siemens Hicom 150E PABXs served two other stations (over 500 km away), respectively.
Communication in the head office and the other six stations was extremely poor, particularly because the external connectivity, including the external extensions, was provided and managed by the local telecom using a very old infrastructure.
Following the successful implementation of the ATM backbone in the head office, and the consequent improvement in services--particularly e-mail services--there was mandate from within the company to address the voice communication problems and to link up the other local stations.
IT identified the following requirements that had to be addressed.
- Reliability: We needed a reliable voice and data network to provide services to all the stations across the country.
- Capacity: We had to provide a network with enough capacity to cater to the current number of users (over 1000) and accommodate future growth.
- Speed: We would require a high-speed network that could cope with operational demands, particularly for application access.
- Integration: We needed an integrated digital network that incorporated both voice and data traffic across the company's stations in Kenya.
Constraints on the project path
We'd identified the requirements, so we next sat down and came up with a list of the constraints we faced:
- Resources: We needed a competent network engineer to provide technical input into the ideal solution, and we didn't have anyone in-house. We decided to hire a consultant to provide technical competence in the design of the network, the drafting of a technical document forming part of a request for proposal (RFP), and the vendor evaluation.
- Telecom services provider: A single service provider (who is a government vendor) provides our infrastructure. Decisions take time, and commitments are rare. To ensure the project's success, we approached the service provider at the highest level, thanks to our top management support.
- Regulatory inhibitions: The regulatory authority prohibited voice over IP over certain technology. However, this was not clarified until later in the project, which caused serious budget and time issues.
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