NTT Communications is known for its fast service provisioning times as well as the reliability and performance of its network services. What’s not so well known is the company, like many other service providers, relies on tools from Cariden Technologies to ensure its network lives up to its reputation.
Cariden’s MATE software helps service providers and large enterprises with three functions with respect to IP/MPLS network traffic management: planning, architecture and engineering, and operations. In the end, it’s all about building and operating a network that delivers good performance all the time, says Arman Maghbouleh, president of Cariden Technologies.
MATE also helps companies bridge the gap that often exists between engineering, planning and operational groups within a service provider. “If you’re trying to avoid congestion, you can approach it from a planning perspective, by putting enough capacity in place. Or you could look at it from an engineering angle, saying I’m going to steer traffic around the congestion to make sure I’m making best use of my capacity,” Maghbouleh says. “Or you could see it as an operational problem: congestion is going to happen, but we’ll mitigate it operationally by moving traffic around when it does.” In each case, MATE software can help, he says.
Customers of service providers that use Cariden tools realize benefits including speedier service provisioning, Maghbouleh says. “The number of steps that take place to bring up a customer is immense, from checking if ports are available, and capacity. If not, you’ve got to order elements and there might be a truck roll involved,” he says. “Software like ours provides the infrastructure for that workflow to be automated.”
That’s because the MATE software knows the state of the network, including whether ports and capacity are available. It can also automate the process of ordering parts when necessary. “So instead of taking three months to bring on a customer, we can shorten it to a week or even less,” he says.
Another end customer benefit is quality of service. “If networks aren’t planned, engineered and operated properly, it’s easy to get in a situation where operators are fire-fighting all the time,” Maghbouleh says.
To avoid such situations, MATE software enables service providers to perform analysis, simulations and forecasting, so they know how traffic is likely to behave under varying circumstances. That includes detailing failure modes that ensure traffic can still get through even if one portion of the network goes down, which is crucial to reliability. MATE software, for example, can support a one-to-many failure mode, where one transatlantic link can serve as a backup for three others. That saves the service provider millions in infrastructure vs. having a one-to-one backup for those expensive circuits – savings they can then pass on to customers.
That explains why eight of the 11 Tier 1 ISPs in the world use Cariden software, including NTTCommunications, which brings you this site – a pretty impressive stat.
