Enivest and Cisco Deploy a DWDM Network at Light Speed

Guest blog by Dan Crawford, Marketing Manager, Cisco

In the western Scandinavian fjords of Norway, Enivest an internet service provider has deployed a new optical transport network using a Cisco optical network solution (NCS 2000). While this, in itself, may not be big news to most people, the real story is about how Enivest managed this deployment.  For people who are not familiar with the expertise and time needed for installing and then lighting up an optical network, it typically takes two days per node/site with some give or take depending on the level of the technician’s expertise.
So, if we consider the eight (8) sites and nodes that Enivest lit up along a 260km span of Sognefjord in Norway (see map below) we would estimate the deployment to have taken upwards of 16 days.  What is impressive abut this deployment is that it took less than a week for Enivest to install and turn on over 260 km of fiber running through 8 sites/nodes for its customers. This kind of agility is important for service providers who are continually looking to cut operating costs and realize new revenue streams.

How did Enivest manage to complete this deployment in a matter of days? It was during the vendor selection process that it became evident that “Cisco’s knowledge of IP plus Optical, both central resources and also local System Engineers’ [became] a major factor for choosing Cisco DWDM” according to Enivest’s CTO, Roger Saugestad.  By working closely alongside one another, Cisco and Enivest engineers used the Cisco Transport Planner (CTP) to design and ultimately provision the DWDM network.  With the CTP, the planning process became a simple exercise in optimizing node placements for ensuring a quick and easy deployment.
Now that Enivest has installed and lit up a solid transport network in the region they are readily supplying their customers with higher quality service offerings that include triple play, IP-VPN, and additional Layer 2 services at 10G dedicated bandwidth with future plans for 100G.  Enivest’s experience working with Cisco throughout the initial DWDM deployment was so positive that it “resulted in new expansion of the DWDM network to more than the double of the first phase. This second phase are currently being deployed and are planned to be operational in October 2015” according to Enivest’s CTO, Roger Saugestad.  Beyond expanding their network and improving their service capabilities, the continued investment and deployment signifies the importance Enivest places on their infrastructure, implementing solutions that are prepared to scale to meet its’ customer’s constantly increasing demand for network capacity.

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