Case studies
Foreign Office
The network consists of a large number of remote sites throughout the world, linked to one of three earth stations, two in the UK and one in Canberra, Australia. The earth stations themselves are linked via land lines and VPNs. Engineers at the NOC and those on call are able to monitor the status of the network using a CAM GFX connection to the prime CAM server in the network, thus allowing the status and configuration of any piece of equipment to be viewed or modified.
The CAM alarm system is configured to watch for significant events throughout the network and flag these to the engineers. At the most basic level these are shown as flashing indicators on the GFX terminals, but in certain conditions the alarm system generates email and SMS text messages in order to alert the operators.
The redundancy controller of the SSPAs does not have a computer interface, instead relying on closed contact relays, so a custom piece of switching hardware had to be built in order to supply enough switching current. Alphawave designed and built a control board with a microprocessor, 16 digital inputs and 16 high voltage/current relays which is fitted at each remote site and connected to the CAM machine on site.
Ministry Of Defence
The MOD have a network of 16 flyaway VSAT terminals and three UK based earth stations. Once deployed, the terminals need to be monitored and controlled in the Cable and Wireless NOC in London. Additionally, a secure, read-only, SNMP link needs to be provided to HP Openview.
Each earth station is fitted with a rack-mount PC running the CAM software. All the remote devices are controlled from these PCs via the async overhead channel (or engineering service channel) of the modem. The connection to HP Openview uses CAM’s SNMP ‘proxy’ ability. CAM can act as a gateway between the non-SNMP aware hardware connected to the CAM network and SNMP-based NMS systems.
Since 2009, the network has expanded to include first one, now two in-country earth stations linked back to the UK sites and all the deployable terminals have been upgraded.
Middle Eastern newspaper publisher
The client published a daily newspaper for the Arab speaking world. The main editorial office was in London, but with contributions from Jeddah and Riyadh. The final copy needed to be distributed to the 12 printing presses situated in Europe and the Middle East. The whole network needed to be managed on a day-to-day basis to ensure equipment down-time was kept to a minimum and the paper hit the newsstands every morning.
Every earth station and VSAT site had at least one CAM terminal. These were used for two main functions: monitoring and control of all the baseband and RF equipment on site; and managing the primary data links between the offices using custom hardware and software designed and built by Alphawave.
Over the duration of the project, half a dozen other daily papers were added to the portfolio; the main title was updated to colour and IP-based networking added to the existing inter-office video conferencing and voice circuits. This was all easily integrated into the CAM system.