Cisco Systems has recently established its Asia Pacific test laboratory, NSITE, at its Capitol Tower office in Singapore. NSITE is part of a global network of labs committed to helping Cisco’s service-provider customers test carrier-class IP networking solutions in real world conditions. Some of the customers that the lab is working with include China Unicom, NTT in Japan and SingTel in Singapore.

In addition to working with Cisco’s service provider customers, the NSITE lab helps to develop local technical talent in Singapore and the region through two initiatives. The first is through the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore’s Training and Attachment Program (TAP). The second involves research staff from universities around the region working for periods of up to 18 months in the lab.

Testing Requires High Availability

In order to test clients’ equipment and analyze interoperability with other Cisco gear, NSITE needs to run without any hitches, especially ones caused by an unreliable power supply.

“We have planned power outages in order to perform maintenance but on occasions we have unintentional failures that are caused internally due to a short or overload,” explains Uwe Fisher, Manager of NSITE.

Without a comprehensive power protection strategy, US$50 million worth of carrier-class networking equipment in the 10,000 square foot NSITE laboratory is at risk of damage whenever a power problem strikes.

“We have very expensive servers that each cost anywhere from US$25K to over US$100K,” reveals Mr. Fisher. “Some manufactures of servers actually require graceful shutdown to ensure that hardware and software problems don't occur, which is why we need a strong backup power system. We also have Core routing solutions that need to be 100 per cent available with graceful shutdowns if necessary.”

The Solution for System Uptime: APC InfraStruXure™

With so much at stake, NSITE requires a reliable availability strategy. That’s why Cisco recently implemented an APC InfraStruXure^TM - a unique data center architecture incorporating power, racks, air and cooling. Cisco based their decision to install an APC InfraStruXure™ Type B on several factors. Firstly, APC and Cisco have a long-standing partnership, so Cisco knew it could trust an APC solution given that it currently uses a wide range of APC products and services to great success.

“Cisco has relied on APC for years now and have found it to be a reliable company. I have personally used APC at all of the companies that I have worked at and it has been a partnership that works due to the reliability of the product as well as the support we have received from APC.”

APC InfraStruXure™ Scalability Overcomes Unpredictable IT Requirements

Cisco was also impressed with the scalability of InfraStruXure™, which allows power protection to grow as IT needs grow, an important consideration given the unpredictable IT requirements of NSITE.

“As we grow our business we depend on our partners to grow with us. InfraStruXure™ actually gives us the mechanism to start out with the 40kW power that we currently need and when our business expands, InfraStruXure™ will easily adapt and grow with us.”

For NSITE, being open to tailor it data center infrastructure to its business requirements is major advantage of InfraStruXure™.

“We choose the size based on our current needs and short term growth, because in the type of business that we are in, we have found that business cycles can be brutal in both the growth area as well as the slow downs. Cisco is a company that likes to move its business objectives the way the market is moving. APC’s InfraStruXure™ allows us to be prepared to grow the business when the need arises,” states Mr. Fisher.

In the event of power loss APC's InfraStruXure™ provides us with time for record collection and graceful shutdowns if necessary.”

Cisco also uses InfraStruXure™ to house and protect NSITE’s networking equipment. The NSITE lab infrastructure consists of a variety of carrier elements to include STP's, Class 5 simulators, PBX's, Call Agents, SCP's, various access equipment (Cable, DSLAM, etc), a high speed IP core, and ATM transport network. A significant investment has been made in the development and acquisition of tools to stress and measure the effects of extreme traffic conditions.

InfraStruXure™ Redundancy and Fault Tolerance Ensure Availability

Since Cisco NSITE has such a high need for availability, Mr. Fisher also believes one of the biggest assets of InfraStruXure™ is its redundancy. InfraStruXure™ achieves N+1 redundancy (running one extra power module than necessary to support a full load) through the internal power array design of its APC UPS system. Therefore if any power module in the rack-mount UPS fails another is on standby to take its place, ensuring availability. Cisco can also maintain availability and reduce service costs with InfraStruXure™’s other fault-tolerant feature – hot-swappable batteries, which allow the quick replacement of used batteries without having to shutdown the system.

“Again APC InfraStruXure™ supplies this for Cisco's NSITE lab and gives us piece of mind that we can recover from any power incident, without the expensive costs of hardware replacement, data loss or loss in productivity,” states Mr. Fisher.

Quick Installation of InfraStruXure™ Minimizes Downtime

Installing a new data centre infrastructure can be a long process beset with technical difficulties. This is not the case with InfraStruXure™ because its electrical and physical modularity allows for rapid installation with minimal engineering. This feature, coupled with the APC Global Services (AGS) Start-UP service, allowed Cisco to accelerate the speed of the data centre’s deployment, thus minimising downtime, an important consideration given the company’s need for system availability.

“We had a turn-key deployment that was very painless and professionally installed, it was quick, easy and the solution is eye appealing,” adds Mr. Fisher.

With unscheduled downtime beaten thanks to APC’s InfraStruXure™, Cisco’s NSITE is now poised to cement its position as the Asia Pacific’s leading IT test laboratory.