Progressive Networks has much experience in the design of ISP core networks. ISPs have particular criteria in mind when designing their networks that differs from standard corporate networks. For example because they support a large number of customers it is important that their networks are very fast and reliable. They also need to be able to manage the bandwidth available to each customer.
We found one ISP in a pretty poor condition. Their data centre was poorly designed. Their network was unreliable and their power supply had no UPS for protection.
We introduced a Cisco base core network that allowed functions such as rate limiting to be performed in software rather than using hardware boxes. We introduced a resilient design with the OSPF routing protocol providing alternate paths within the core of the network. We also added an APC Symetra UPS system for redundant power supply. The datacentre was tidied up and all devices were rack mounted instead of table mounted.
Upstream routing was managed using the BGP4 protocol and a second upstream provider introduced for further resilience.
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