Case Studies

The Opus Group

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Challenge:

The Opus Group's Minnetonka, Minn. headquarters is part of a 30-building, multi-business complex built in the 1980s. In late 2004, executives determined the acquisition of additional office space in the campus park would allow Opus to better accommodate a rapidly expanding employee base that consisted of 350 people on three floors. Executives identified a multi-tenant building – located 477 meters (1/3 of a mile) across several roadways that weave through the campus – to serve as a new state-of-the-art satellite facility for up to 140 architectural engineers.

Opus' IT department was then tasked with finding a building-to-building connectivity solution that would enable the engineers to seamlessly access the corporate network as well as their business-critical computer-aided design (CAD) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications. Network redundancy was critical for ensuring maximum uptime for the engineers. At the same time, enterprise-caliber, high-speed transport was necessary for handling the bandwidth-intensive traffic flowing in and out of the building.

Opus officials looked at fiber-optic cable, but didn’t want to deal with the trenching and installation delays, not to mention the estimated costs of up to $19,000 per month for a SONET-protected Gigabit link from Qwest, the regional telecommunications provider. Designed for handling multiple categories of traffic, such as voice and data, this network would comprise two fiber rings running in opposite directions, with one deployed as a backup.

According to Jonathon Clark, senior WAN engineer for Opus, the high costs and inconvenience of installing Gigabit fiber forced the company to look for a more optimal alternative. T1 lines were out of the question due to speed and performance limitations. Radio frequency (RF) was also considered, but Opus executives feared the technology would fall short of meeting their demands for the highest levels of reliability, particularly as the primary connectivity path.

At that point, Clark recalled coming across information on Optical Wireless solutions using free-space optics (FSO), a line-of-sight technology provides high-speed bandwidth using beams of light for sending and receiving voice, video and data. "It appeared that FSO could deliver LAN-to-LAN connectivity between the two buildings without the expense and time constraints of fiber," Clark said. "In addition, we found FSO has been deployed by some of the world's most respected companies. It almost seemed too good to be true."

Clark and his team enlisted the help of a local FSO expert, Peter Schoon, president of System Support Solutions, Inc., of Orono, Minn. With more than 150 successful deployments throughout North America and other continents, System Support Solutions is 100 percent focused on FSO/Optical Wireless distribution and integration services. Schoon provided Opus with an in-depth evaluation of Optical Wireless, leveraging his experience to assure Clark and his team that the technology not only offered the bandwidth required – but at a significant time and cost savings.

Their next step was to assess the market players and choose the products that best met the company's needs. Clark evaluated a number of competitive offerings, but was most impressed with the speed and throughput delivered by LightPointe, a pioneer in the development of Optical Wireless solutions based on FSO. LightPointe designs and manufactures license-free, high-speed outdoor wireless products that have earned high marks in both government and enterprise networking installations. The company's products link two or more buildings with classic LAN-to-LAN backbone connectivity, providing bandwidth from 100 Mbps up to 1.25 Gbps while eliminating the installation challenges of fiber.

Opus ultimately chose the high-performance LightPointe FlightStrata G, offering Gigabit Ethernet speeds up to 1.25 Gbps for the most data-intensive enterprise networks. It features Multi-Beam Array Tracking (MBAT), Automatic Power Control (APC) and Optical Beam Shaping (OBS) to ensure system redundancy via multiple send and receive paths, additional power during reduced weather visibility and continuous adjustment to address movement from building sway.

The Solution:

LightPointe's FlightStrata G enabled Opus to extend its corporate network economically, leaving enough room in the budget for the company to create redundancy through the purchase of a secondary RF link. This BridgeWave GE60 link consists of a pair of integrated outdoor millimeter-wave radios that transmit and receive simultaneously at full Gigabit Ethernet speeds. By blending the two high-speed technologies – Optical Wireless and RF – Opus achieved a hybrid approach for building-to-building connectivity that resulted in the ultimate in "five nines" availability.

According to Schoon, hybrid links provide excellent high-speed alternatives for enterprises, such as Opus, with data communications policies that call for a redundant path. "The two technologies complement each other well, with each displaying advantages depending upon weather conditions," he said. "Now, whether they face powerful rain, dense fog or heavy winds, Opus won't need to worry about its network failing. In addition, the two paths also provide redundancy to mitigate any potential hardware failures, much in the same way double-trenched fiber does."

Shortly after Opus selected its own hybrid connectivity solution, LightPointe announced the FlightStrata 100 XA, a breakthrough outdoor wireless product that blends a high-bandwidth optical link and an unlicensed RF backup with intelligent seamless switching. This integrated solution offers companies both primary and secondary connectivity paths for maximum network availability. Now available, the FlightStrata 100 XA provides Fast Ethernet throughput and carrier-class 99.999 percent uptime in all weather conditions at distances up to 5 kilometers.

Sound Byte:

"The speed of LightPointe caught my eye initially, but the reliability and cost savings really won me over in the end."
— Jonathon Clark, Senior WAN Engineer, The Opus Group