/ Project 01

3 factories, 3 cities, 1 logical unit

Situation

The client owns 3 factories in 3 different cities within Croatia, with established local networks and leased internet access.

Requirements

The primary requirement is to enable access to local network resources from all 3 factory locations within the Republic of Croatia. To ensure business continuity, an additional requirement is to establish a Disaster Recovery site.

Goals

Monitoring production traceability, reducing waste, increasing resource utilization and easier process management.

Decision

Factories moved to three different locations in Croatia are connected in one logical unit. The connection was made using the Sophos firewall via IPSec VPN connections. It is possible to manage the production process from a central location, and in the event of an accident, a DR site with preserved data has been established.

/ Project 02

WiFi installations for 6 hotels in 27 days

Situation

The user is a hotel chain with 6 properties and an average daily number of clients of over 2000.

Claim

Provide WiFi network in 6 hotels and achieve signal coverage of hotel rooms and common areas such as bars, restaurants, reception, swimming pools and open areas of hotel beaches.

Goal

Provide guests with flawless ‘surfing’ in every corner of the hotel.

Decision

6 WiFi controllers, 78 24-port PoE switches and 1090 wireless access points (AP) were installed and configured in the project. More than 6,000 meters of UTP cable were laid. Eight network experts of various profiles achieved the coverage of all required spaces in 6 hotels, and the entire project was completed in just 27 working days.

/ Project 03

Rescue from the flood in the DR site and the cloud

Situation

Due to the specifics of his business, the user is aware of the enormous risk of relying only on the local system.

Claim

Establish a Disaster Recovery (DR) system.

Goal

In the event of long-term unplanned unavailability, transfer the entire production to another site as soon as possible.

Decision

A combination of Hyper-V replication of critical servers to another location was installed, as well as Veeam Backup of all servers on a local NAS and backup copies on O2 Cloud Backup.

How does this work in practice?

On one occasion, there was a flood on the user’s primary site, and as a result, all servers and backup NAS devices were unplanned. It was not known when the site would be back in operation, nor how much equipment was damaged by the flood. After the decision to turn on the DR site, our experts brought the critical servers back into operation within 15 minutes. We restored the less critical servers in the next few hours in such a way that, given that the backup NAS was not working, we restored the server from the O2 Cloud Backup location.

/ Project 04

Data analysis? Rent servers!

Situation

The need was to analyze the user’s data center data.

Claim

Renting 2560 core, 10TB RAM and 38TB Nvme, darkfiber connection to the user’s data center.

Decision

We delivered the requested configuration of 40 servers, each with a 64 core processor, 256GB RAM and 960GB Nvme disk. The servers are located in a data center with redundant power supplies, air conditioning and redundant Internet links.

/ Project 05

Exchange 2003 system migration to O365

Situation

The user’s existing, outdated Exchange 2003 mail system served two domains. In addition to the outdated mail system, the operating system (OS) was also outdated, and did not support direct migration to O365 without additional installations and migrations.

Claim

The user requested the migration of their existing Microsoft Exchange 2003 mail system to Office365.

Decision

Given that direct migration to O365 was not supported due to outdated existing email and operating systems, a ‘cutover’ migration was agreed with the user.

The user is offered one O365 tenant with 2 domains. For the need of user migration, one server was installed which was used for AD synchronization of user accounts on O365. In addition, we manually created distribution groups, shared mailboxes, exclaimers and disclaimers depending on which domain the mails come/go to.

At the agreed time, the MX records were changed for the two disputed domains, after which O365 became the authoritative mail server for them.

The user himself, for his users, had to export emails to PST from existing Outlook 2007 clients and, after removing the Office 2007 package and installing the Microsoft Office 365 package, import PSTs into the newly prepared mailboxes in O365.

/ Project 06

River cruise with seamless internet surfing

Situation

Two 100 m long river cruisers, with approximately 60 passenger cabins and outdated network infrastructure.

Claim

Upgrade of the old network, which includes the dismantling of old installations and the installation of new ones for access points, while the ship is being overhauled.

Goal

Covering river cruisers with a flawless wireless signal.

Works performed

– Dismantling of old installations on board and freeing routes for new cables

– Laying new sections of Cat. 6a cable (1500m) to wireless access points on the inner and outer decks, starlink and GSM antennas, ship’s engine room and offices on board

– Design and installation of a new, additional communication hub on ships

– Connecting 2 communication cabinets with 12 FO MM OM4 fibers + 2 Cat.6a uplinks

Decision

Due to specific requirements and space constraints, 1U hybrid high density panels were used. Each of them housed 12 MM OM4 fibers and over 20 keystone modules. The work on each of the two ships was completed within 7 working days.

/ Project 07

Cable to TV, telephone and internet in 600 cruise ship cabins

Situation

A 600-cabin ocean liner undergoing repairs at a shipyard in Marseille. A steel monstrosity with a partially implemented network infrastructure, where it’s not always easy for passengers or the WiFi signal to find their way.

Claim

Structural cabling of the cruise ship in such a way that each of the approximately 600 passenger cabins is equipped with IP telephone installations and a connection for IP television, as well as covered by a wireless Internet connection.

Goal

Provide passengers with a fast and stable wireless Internet connection in every corner of the ship.

Decision

More than 15 kilometers of Cat.6 cable were used during the project, while respecting the rules for installing cables for marine vessels, thus ensuring a high level of safety and reliability.

Each corridor on the ship is connected to a distribution point within one fire zone. The uplink for the corridor distribution is derived from the existing access points, thus achieving redundancy on the uplink with 2 to 4 cables. More than 600 access points have been installed, and each passenger cabin has its own.

12 experts worked on the project, some from their own resources and some from external collaborators. Cooperation and teamwork enabled the project to be completed within the scheduled deadline, with a high standard of quality. The efficiency and speed of the project implementation was further contributed by the investor, who himself provided the active network equipment . The entire project was successfully completed in less than 30 days.

/ Project 08

TV, telephone and internet for passengers, and connection of critical ship systems for crew

Situation

A 400-cabin ocean liner undergoing repairs at a shipyard in Gdansk. More than 240 access points (APs) are deployed in the ship’s public areas, corridors, restaurants, engine room and storage.

Claim

Structural cabling of the cruise ship and ensuring the installation of IP phones, IP TVs and access points in each of the 400 passenger cabins and the replacement of the existing more than 240 APs in the public areas of the ship.

Additionally, it was necessary to interconnect the two server rooms using 96-strand OM5 fiber optic cable, as well as connect each of the server rooms with 12-strand OM4 cable to all 14 communication cabinets distributed throughout the ship, and to each of the separate distribution cabinets within the corridor in each fire zone.

One of the key requirements was to run fiber optic cables for critical ship systems, including communications between the bridge and engine rooms, and between the engine room and the bow thruster room. It was also necessary to establish connections within the main switchboard using 250-micron optics.

The final request included the preparation of the network and electrical installation for the reception of two Starlink antennas on the roof of the ship, and additional connections on the bridge and in the engine room area.

Goal

Improving the quality of accommodation by installing IP TV and IP telephone installations in cabins, as well as wireless internet in cabins and public areas of the ship. Enabling seamless communication of critical ship systems.

Decision

The distribution to each cabin was made from each corridor within the fire zones using Cat.6a cable, with a total of about 13 km of cable consumed. Given the limited space for placing communication cabinets in the corridors, it was decided to use HD panels from the Polish manufacturer Fibrain, whose products we have been using in our installations for years. HD panels enable the accommodation of up to 48 Cat.6a keystone connectors or 192 fiber optics with LC connectors. Since 2 x 12 strands of optical cables from each server room reached each distribution point for redundancy, and in some corridors there were up to 40 keystone connections, HD panels proved to be an ideal solution. Instead of using 3U of space, all the elements were stacked inside 1U of space.

To save time, the OM4 optics are pre-threaded with MPO connectors, eliminating the need to manually splice the optics into the optical cassettes. All that needed to be done was to clean the MPO connectors on the cables and HD optical cassettes, and connect them, which significantly speeded up the whole process.

The installed optics were also from Fibrain, with a total of more than 7 km of OM4 cable, while for key ship systems, about 1 km of optical cables from Armada cables were used, which are certified for installation in seagoing vessels according to DNV GL standards.

Passages through fire zones were made either through existing openings, or using STI Marine fire sealing products.

The entire job was completed in less than 60 days, with the engagement of a total of 15 workers, including our own employees and external collaborators.