North Africa Oil&Gas Firm

Data & Voice Network for new Business Campus Center in North Africa Oil&Gas Firm

Enterprise Campus Network (ECN) Architecture for Smart Buildings and Smart Business Campus Center

Customer’s request: Designing from scratch the new Smart Campus with: 7 Sky-scrappers and related Smart Buildings with Optical Transport Network Fiber/Copper/Wireless micro cell and Wi-Fi.
Data center with more than 200 file servers, 2.000 virtual server services and the entire network infrastructure including Unified Communication.

 
Basic Statement:

The Enterprise Campus Network is a key element in this business computing, it provides the infrastructure to support all services; Data, Voice & Video thru wired and wireless connections.

ECN Requirements:

• Global enterprise availability
• Unified Communications, financial, medical, Critical Systems and real time interactive Applications.
• Safer and more reliable data repositories, network availability for all business processes.
• Provide 7x24x365. Operational services
• Unified Communications services
• Robust Security solution
• Migration to new protocols and features: Ipv6, new Services.
• Company Objective: Provide Access to Everybody/Everything Anywhere including (Partners and Guests): Laptop, Smartphone and Tablet, IoT devices with strong Security connected via wireless or wired.
• Respond to Next generation Applications that require higher capacity for embedded rich media content.
• Interactive high definition video.
• Overcome “Do it Yourself Integration that has been delaying network deployments and increase overall costs.
• Fully Redundant System with Switching, Segmentation, Security Features and Functionalities.

Fundamental Pillars of the Enterprise Campus Network

• Hierarchy 
• Modularity 
• Resiliency
• Flexibility/Scalability

The Enterprise Campus Network includes the following 3 levels:

• Core level provides optimal transport between sites and high performance routing.
• Distribution level provides policy-based connectivity and control boundary between the access and core levels
• Access level provides a secure access to work group and users to the network

Overall Architecture

The Enterprise Campus Network Architecture designed to have the highest level of resiliency by implementing:

• Network Resiliency
• Device Resiliency 
• Operational Resiliency 

Logical Architecture

The campus network will be divided into 7 subsystem (NOC, MOG, CBP, BPMC, COF, HTL, PLT),  

Termination Point at Campus Distribution 

Voice Support

Voice service for local users and connection to external PSTN network will be delivered using Voice Over IP (VOIP) solutions. I is based on 3 logical components providing the following functionalities:

End User Terminal: this is typically identified with a phone, but given the flexibility and features of VoIP this could be implemented by a software solution on a PC, on a Mac or on tablet or smartphone

The VoIP Server: it provides call control (setup, termination, dial tones,…) and routing plus advanced functionalities like voice mail, music on hold, call transfer, multi-parties call, etc.

Voice Gateway: It enables the connection of the private campus VoIP solution to the PSTN network provided by the Local Telecom Provider: PRI, Ch. E1, SIP trunk.

Servers and Server Connectivity

Servers installed in each building will be connected at the aggregation/distribution layer to provide maximum availability of the services. These connections run on double 10Gbps F.O. interface with the capability to work  different ways: 

Bonded Configuration (interface teaming) to provide aggregated bandwidth

Active/Backup Configuration to provide redundancies

Storage capacity of the server complex exceed 30 TB per building. 

Servers can be configured differently by Operating System (Microsoft, VMWare or Linux) based on the applications (mail server, database Server, Web Server,…).

Building/Tenant Spec

in summary each building is based on the 3 Levels architecture. We identify 3 set of devices for:

• Access 
• Aggregation/distribution
• Core Level

The Access Level will be implemented at each floor level by means of a stackable switch with port density of 24 or 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet copper ports and at least 4 F.O. downlink ports able to support 10Gbps Ethernet on multi-mode fiber.. Each stack of devices will be connected to the Aggregation/Distribution Level by 2 F.O. down-links at 10Gbps, when/where possible F.O. should run through alternative paths. Specific requirements for this switch, identified as Switch-A will be outlined in the device description document. 

In order to provide Wireless coverage throughout the building and considering the most recent advance in the Wi-Fi technology,  each floor will be equipped with WiFi 6 Access Points with attached low gain omni-directional MIMO antenna mounted on the ceiling to provide better ceiling-to-floor coverage and reduced multi-path interference.
In order to facilitate the management, tuning and expansion of the wireless access networks it is required that the APs are managed by a central server (Wireless LAN Server WLS).

These Access Points powered from the Access Switch by POE (Power Over Ethernet) technology.
The access switch will provide enough power (Watt) to enable the full functionalities of the selected AP. 

Voice connections will be provided by VoIP technology and each desk will be equipped with a proper IP Phone. IP Phones must be compliant with the requirements set forth by the VoIP server selected.