Case Study HanseNet

The Client
HanseNet, today a 100% subsidiary of Telecom Italia, is one of the successful competitors of the Deutsche Telekom AG in the fixed network market. Originally started in Hamburg as a pure city carrier, meanwhile HanseNet offers Telephone/DSL-services nationwide under the trade name Alice and has achieved to become as TNB with about 2 million private customers and about 1 billion € sales in 2007 one of the heavyweight competitors of the Deutsche Telekom AG.
HanseNet is aiming to continue growing fast in the DSL-market and thus, to continue its expansionist policy. This requires further expansion of their network infrastructure in order to become independent from wholesale-partners (e.g. QSQ or Telefonica) while increasing its market penetration.

The Challenge
The fast increase of clients of the past years also resulted in an adequately stormy expansion of the associated network infrastructure at HanseNet. Finally, HanseNet has grown out of the role of an assessable city carrier in Hamburg and operates TC-infrastructure in all of Germany today. Thus, at the beginning of 2007 HanseNet was facing the challenge to significantly automatise and speed up the entire process of network expansion in order to meet the requirements of further network expansion and the expected increase in the number of clients.
Up to now, the data of the network equipment was saved in Excel tables, Visio charts and a proprietary data base. Problems arise by simultaneous processing of different files and the insecurity concerning the actuality and availability of required data. Moreover, it is impossible to save and maintain the coming amount of data within the old system environment due to the expansion.

The Solution
In 2007 HanseNet decided to invite worldwide tenders for a new planning, inventory and documentation system. It was aimed to optimise and to automatise the processes of network planning and documentation to the greatest possible extent. This included the inventory of all POP and MDF sites with their server rooms, racks, maps, ports and links.

Xionet together with its partner Aktavara won this tender against international competitors and in August 2007 started introducing the tool x:aktaTM at HanseNetXionet. The focus of the tasks was the system integration, customisation and configuration of the system to the specific requirements of HanseNet and the creation of interfaces to the existing IT-landscape.

The following tasks had to be solved:

• Site layout planning
• Rack layout planning
• Planning of power consumption and the UPS
• Planning of the physical network structure (rings, hierarchies etc.)
• Planning of physical links (fibre links, leased-lines, copper cable, patch cable)
• Planning and documentation of the IP address management
• Documentation of the web farm
• Presentation of results by Excel and Visio reports

The Result
The result for HanseNet is the deployment of a custom-made tool for an exact, complete and above all always up-to-date documentation of all network resources as basis for the operative efficiency of the network.
The data model for the recording of the network equipment and the rules (for shortcuts, structures etc.) are configured according to the requirements of HanseNet and can be modified in operation by the administrators according to the current requirements.
Thus, all requirements for the planned network expansion are met. Likewise HanseNet is all set for the case of disaster recovery action, when quick finding and activation of alternative line paths and network components are required. Xionet not only accompanies its clients during the design phase but also supports the introduction into operation, gives qualified support and consults in case of adjustments required due to dynamically changing market requirements.