Do you manage your fiber infrastructure? If you do, here’s a big round of applause to you: working on fiber plant networks isn’t easy! Afterall, you’re managing the day in and day out maintenance, problems that come out of nowhere, fiber cuts or loss, managing fiber capacity, and dealing with the complexities of circuit design and management, and a whole lot more…it’s a lot to juggle.
If you’re using spreadsheets or Google Earth to manage your outside fiber plant, you’re probably finding yourself spending time going out to the field or sorting through various documents to solve issues, to help manage capacity, and finding information easily can take some time— in other words, you’ve got headaches you didn’t create.
Good news: Outside Plant (OSP) network software is a game changer for the organizations we’ve spoken with (we’ve talked to a lot of folks as we make netTerrain OSP network software). It simplifies processes, provides a way to see your entire fiber plant infrastructure at your fingertips, viewing your fiber conduits, its cables, and down to the fiber splices, and even makes circuit design fun.
Here’s how OSP network software saves the day:
No More Going Out into the Field Without Knowing What You Need
Recently, we completed a case study with one of the organizations that uses netTerrain OSP: University of Notre Dame. Jason, an RCDD, pointed out that before they had proper OSP network software, they dealt with a lot of back-and-forth between the office and the field. If, for example, a patch was needed or a link had to be repaired, the team had to make their best guess about the connector needed and its approximate location. A team member would have to get access to the room, see what was available, and make several back-and-forth trips between the field and the office. Connections that ran from building-to-building were even more of a headache.
Now, with OSP network software, it’s easy for them. When there’s an issue, they can open up their OSP network software, see what’s in a room, and drill down to the strand and port level….all without leaving the office. They can also save important information directly in netTerrain — such as who to call for access, etc.
No More Walking Cabling to Figure Out Where it Goes
Another customer we spoke with recently, who works at Baltimore Thurgood-Marshall International Airport (BWI) in Baltimore, said that before netTerrain, if he needed to know where a cable went, it could mean literal miles of walking the cable to find the end point.
Now, with netTerrain, it’s easy: he can pull up a diagram in seconds and quickly see exactly where a cable begins and ends!
No More Stressing About Fiber Capacity
Got fiber capacity headaches? Not sure what your availability is? With netTerrain, it’s easy. You can run capacity reports that show you how much capacity you have across the cables in a fiber network — and you can drill down to the individual strand. So, for example, if a report shows that you’ll only need to use 10 strands out of a 72 strand fiber — you can then light these strands up as available and allocate funds elsewhere.
Managing Fiber Strands is Simple with OSP Network Software
No More Circuit Management Headaches
Circuit management and design can be a real pain in the neck. With netTerrain OSP, it can actually be fun. netTerrain makes it simple to create end-to-end high level circuits — with their properties and mapping of the underlying physical paths. You can view circuits, change their styles based on your criteria, trace inter-diagram circuits, and a whole lot more. Need to find available fiber connections that are free, to make new connections? Click on two buildings and see if there are available free paths that you can use? Yep, you can do that with an OSP software.
You can create L1 and L2 circuits according to a specific fiber, Ethernet, or SONET/SDH/PDH hierarchy — and nest circuits from a lower order with the circuits from a higher one — and much more. To read more about how you can simplify circuit management with OSP network software like netTerrain, click here.
Example: Block Circuit Layout Record in netTerrain
Bottomline? If you’re sick of dealing with fiber headaches, want to be able to see your entire OSP network with a few clicks, improve fiber capacity and circuit management…and a whole lot more…look into OSP network software like netTerrain.