fiber plant management?
To those of you who currently operate large campus/metro fiber plants, what are you currently using to track the usage of that plant? By that I mean things such as: * tracking the number of free/used/unusable strands in a cable * tracking conduit utilization * tying OTDR test results/power meter readings to strands * trying as-built drawings to cable routes and plant assets like manholes, junction boxes, transition splice points, duct banks, utility poles, etc. * mapping termination bays to cables * tracking cross-connects and splice locations * grouping cable segments and cross-connects together into a path/circuit * utilization reports, etc. I've looked at one or two commercial packages, and might look at more as time permits. I haven't seen much in the open-source world, and I suspect that many places ended up rolling their own management apps to tie into existing provisioning systems, etc. It's possible that I could end up going that route as well. jms
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it. -M< On 2/4/10, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
To those of you who currently operate large campus/metro fiber plants, what are you currently using to track the usage of that plant? By that I mean things such as: * tracking the number of free/used/unusable strands in a cable * tracking conduit utilization * tying OTDR test results/power meter readings to strands * trying as-built drawings to cable routes and plant assets like manholes, junction boxes, transition splice points, duct banks, utility poles, etc. * mapping termination bays to cables * tracking cross-connects and splice locations * grouping cable segments and cross-connects together into a path/circuit * utilization reports, etc.
I've looked at one or two commercial packages, and might look at more as time permits. I haven't seen much in the open-source world, and I suspect that many places ended up rolling their own management apps to tie into existing provisioning systems, etc. It's possible that I could end up going that route as well.
jms
-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option. jms
On 2/4/10, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
To those of you who currently operate large campus/metro fiber plants, what are you currently using to track the usage of that plant? By that I mean things such as: * tracking the number of free/used/unusable strands in a cable * tracking conduit utilization * tying OTDR test results/power meter readings to strands * trying as-built drawings to cable routes and plant assets like manholes, junction boxes, transition splice points, duct banks, utility poles, etc. * mapping termination bays to cables * tracking cross-connects and splice locations * grouping cable segments and cross-connects together into a path/circuit * utilization reports, etc.
I've looked at one or two commercial packages, and might look at more as time permits. I haven't seen much in the open-source world, and I suspect that many places ended up rolling their own management apps to tie into existing provisioning systems, etc. It's possible that I could end up going that route as well.
jms
-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org>wrote:
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option.
How large? -- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
Hello fellow Nanogers, I know this is an emotional issue for some but we're looking at some upgrades to our cores and being a classic cisco shop we're wondering if anyone has had any experience with the Cisco ASR models in the service provider space. We're used to running VXR's and are trying to make a decision between going with G2 proc or moving into the ASR's. These would be edge routers. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you. Dustin Dustin Jurman CEO 1211 North Westshore Blvd - Suite 711 Tampa, Fl 33607 813-232-4887 dustin@rseng.net "Building Better Infrastructure" -----Original Message----- From: Martin Hannigan [mailto:martin@theicelandguy.com] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 3:02 PM To: Justin M. Streiner Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: fiber plant management? On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org>wrote:
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option.
How large? -- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Dustin Jurman wrote:
I know this is an emotional issue for some but we're looking at some upgrades to our cores and being a classic cisco shop we're wondering if anyone has had any experience with the Cisco ASR models in the service provider space. We're used to running VXR's and are trying to make a decision between going with G2 proc or moving into the ASR's. These would be edge routers. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you.
Wouldn't it be better to start a new thread for this, rather trying to hijack an unrelated thread? VXRs and ASRs have nothing to do with fiber plant management. jms
-----Original Message----- From: Martin Hannigan [mailto:martin@theicelandguy.com] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 3:02 PM To: Justin M. Streiner Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: fiber plant management?
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org>wrote:
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option.
How large?
-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
My mistake, Dustin Dustin Jurman CEO 1211 North Westshore Blvd - Suite 711 Tampa, Fl 33607 813-232-4887 dustin@rseng.net "Building Better Infrastructure" -----Original Message----- From: Justin M. Streiner [mailto:streiner@cluebyfour.org] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 4:29 PM To: Dustin Jurman Cc: 'nanog@nanog.org' Subject: RE: fiber plant management? On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Dustin Jurman wrote:
I know this is an emotional issue for some but we're looking at some upgrades to our cores and being a classic cisco shop we're wondering if anyone has had any experience with the Cisco ASR models in the service provider space. We're used to running VXR's and are trying to make a decision between going with G2 proc or moving into the ASR's. These would be edge routers. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you.
Wouldn't it be better to start a new thread for this, rather trying to hijack an unrelated thread? VXRs and ASRs have nothing to do with fiber plant management. jms
FYI, "Start a new thread" does not mean "reply to a message in an existing thread and then change the subject line." A new thread consists of actually creating a new message (however your mail client does that). The reason this is important is that those of us who actually use threaded mail readers will see (or quite possibly not see) your message buried in the middle of another thread with a totally unrelated topic. In fact, thunderbird 3 has a great new feature where you can easily delete a whole thread unread with one click. hope this helps, Doug (he must really be a CEO) -- Improve the effectiveness of your Internet presence with a domain name makeover! http://SupersetSolutions.com/ Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option.
How large?
Around 90 buildings, lots of conduits/manholes/pullboxes, lots of owned fiber or varying vintages, lots of leased fiber. Around a dozen people have the ability to work on the plant. A spreadsheet won't cut it. jms
We're in the process of evaluating: http://www.stellarrad.com/windowsbased/stellarmap.cfm So far it looks OK... Our OSP guys & technicians seem happy with it, which is the important part... Something that helps them identify where a potential problem or where plant is down is the #1 goal we're after.. The hardest part is actually gathering the data to put into the system, we're gathering every pole & every splice to enter into the system... And no, an Excel sheet does not work... -- Tim On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Martin Hannigan wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Our fiber plant is large enough, and enough people make changes that a spreadsheet is not a scalable option.
jms
On 2/4/10, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
To those of you who currently operate large campus/metro fiber plants, what are you currently using to track the usage of that plant? By that I mean things such as: * tracking the number of free/used/unusable strands in a cable * tracking conduit utilization * tying OTDR test results/power meter readings to strands * trying as-built drawings to cable routes and plant assets like manholes, junction boxes, transition splice points, duct banks, utility poles, etc. * mapping termination bays to cables * tracking cross-connects and splice locations * grouping cable segments and cross-connects together into a path/circuit * utilization reports, etc.
I've looked at one or two commercial packages, and might look at more as time permits. I haven't seen much in the open-source world, and I suspect that many places ended up rolling their own management apps to tie into existing provisioning systems, etc. It's possible that I could end up going that route as well.
jms
-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:38 AM, Martin Hannigan <martin@theicelandguy.com> wrote:
Honestly? A spreadsheet will do it.
Let me translate that into plain English for you. He said that a "barebones database" will do it and he happens to use a simple one that he built himself. Clearly there are scaling issues with his technology choice, but other than that, his solution is probably the most common one you will find out there. Most ISPs use a straightforward database (usually a full-blown relational one) and build their own application around it. A company that I worked at 10 years ago built a system around a CRM tool called Vantive. At first glance, CRM tools are not the kind of thing you would normally choose for tracking circuits and physical plant. But since this CRM tool allowed customization with VBA, and since VBA allowed access to full-blown relational databases, we ended up with a very nice tool that not only tracked circuits, fibres, etc. but also allowed us to link it all to customers so if there was a specific fibre route cut, we could immediately get a list of contact names and numbers for all customers whose services were affected. My advice is to find out what in-house database skills you have available, and get them to build a simple records system using Oracle, PostreSQL, DB2, SQL Server or similar, and to make sure that they understand that the intent is to evolve it step by step into a full-blown system. This last is important so that they think about how to make a long-term design and make fewer mistakes that need to be fixed later. --Michael Dillon
participants (6)
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Doug Barton -
Dustin Jurman -
Justin M. Streiner -
Martin Hannigan -
Michael Dillon -
Tim Jackson