Ensuring Uninterrupted Services when Migrating to Mission-Critical Broadband Networks
In our increasingly connected world, broadband is no longer a luxury for many sectors, it’s the very backbone of their operations. This is especially true for “mission-critical” applications – those where a momentary loss of connectivity can have severe consequences, impacting public safety, essential services, or even national security. When we talk about such networks, the concept of availability shifts from an important feature to an absolute imperative.
Think about it: a sudden outage can bring an entire business to a halt, disrupt life-saving medical procedures, or cripple emergency response efforts. In these scenarios, “best effort” simply isn’t good enough. Mission-critical broadband networks demand unwavering performance, and that’s where the twin pillars of availability and service assurance come into play.
High Availability: The Foundation of Trust
At its core, high availability refers to the ability of a network to be operational and accessible when needed. For mission-critical services, this means aiming for “five nines” (99.999%) or even higher uptime. While perfect 100% availability is an elusive goal, minimizing downtime to mere minutes or seconds annually is crucial.
Achieving high availability involves a comprehensive strategy encompassing:
- Robust Network Design: Building networks with no single point of failure, utilizing redundant paths, power supplies, and equipment.
- Proactive Maintenance: Regularly inspecting and maintaining infrastructure to prevent potential issues before they cause outages.
- Disaster Recovery Planning: Having well-defined procedures and systems in place to quickly restore service in the event of a major disruption.
- Geographic Redundancy: Distributing critical infrastructure across different locations to mitigate the impact of localized disasters.
When availability is compromised, the consequences can be severe: financial losses, reputational damage, and, most importantly, threats to public safety and well-being.
Service Assurance: Going Beyond the Basics
While high availability is the foundation of a mission-critical network, service assurance takes the concept a step further. It is all about guaranteeing that the network not only works but consistently delivers the expected quality of service (QoS) for specific applications and users. This is particularly vital in mission-critical scenarios where low latency, high bandwidth, and minimal packet loss are non-negotiable.
Service assurance encompasses a range of practices and technologies, including:
- Real-time Performance Monitoring: Continuously tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like latency, jitter, and packet loss across the entire network, typically using the TWAMP protocol for active monitoring.
- Proactive Issue Detection and Resolution: Utilizing intelligent tools and automation to identify anomalies and potential problems before they impact services, and then rapidly
addressing them. - Root Cause Analysis: When an issue does occur, precisely identifying the root cause to prevent recurrence.
- SLA Management: Ensuring that the network consistently meets agreed-upon Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers, especially those relying on critical applications.
Consider a hospital relying on a broadband connection for remote surgeries or critical patient monitoring. High availability is a given, but service assurance ensures that the connection consistently provides the low latency and high bandwidth required for real-time video and data transmission, preventing any lag or interruption that could have life-threatening consequences.
Transport Specific Challenges in Mission Critical Broadband
When you migrate to mission-critical broadband, a common mistake is to assume that management and monitoring of the network will be similar to that of a voice-oriented transmission network. However, mission-critical broadband transport networks present unique challenges:
- Visibility: Unlike voice networks, where simply monitoring link status is sufficient, data networks experience sudden bursts, packet drops, and significant delays, impacting delay-sensitive applications like push-to-talk. Operators need monitoring tools capable of tracking end-to-end network status in terms of delay, jitter, and packet loss.
- Confidence: Mission-critical wireless broadband networks are commonly built utilizing existing infrastructure from a third-party mobile operator for the radio access network. Thus, a critical communications operator lacks direct visibility into that network. Therefore, the ability to verify end-to-end Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements over the third-party network is crucial to ensure necessary service quality.
- Proactiveness: Unavailability of mission-critical broadband services is unacceptable. Operators must be able to anticipate issues before they affect end-users. Analyzing historical data helps identify trends and hotspots, enabling network reconfiguration or capacity additions where needed in order to adapt to evolving demands for the network, as there are more applications running on the networks, such as data-intensive mission-critical video.
Read more on the topic in this article:
A Successful Journey to 4G/5G-based Mission-Critical Mobile Broadband
The Bottom Line
For mission-critical broadband, the stakes are simply too high to compromise on availability and service assurance. These aren’t just technical considerations; they are fundamental requirements for safety, productivity, and progress in an increasingly digital world. By prioritizing robust design, proactive monitoring, and intelligent management, network operators can build and maintain the resilient, high-performing networks that our interconnected future demands.
Solution Models for Mission Critical Broadband: