Managing the Passive Telecontrol Network Layers for Kuwait Airport

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Introduction

Since 1960, ACC (Arabian Construction Company) has become Kuwait’s leading system integrator. Delivering ground-breaking solutions and uncompromising services across various technology segments for over six decades, ACC has left an outstanding and lasting footprint in the country. Building on its pivotal role in the development and implementation of critical infrastructure projects in Kuwait, ACC has ventured out into the wider region, backed by decades of laurels and experience. ACC aspires to extend its diversified solutions and critical services to the entire Gulf Cooperation Council market to all major client segments that require end-to-end digital transformation, telecom, IT and firefighting services. As technology partner to many of the world’s leading telecom and communication providers, including Cisco, Huawei, ZTE, TCI, ICOM and SIAE, our turnkey projects have transformed the Kuwait market. Partnering with IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, VertiGIS and similar world leaders has given us the strength to deliver world-class business solution software to the fast-developing local industry, including professional services and license delivery.

Challenge

ACC is the general contractor for the planning, construction and operation of the telecontrol network at Kuwait Airport. This telecontrol network carries avionic and meteorological data between all internal and external IT subsystems that manage flight traffic control from take-off to landing. These systems are critical to the safety and reliability of air traffic, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are therefore strictly isolated from other networks, such as the office IT environment and, of course, the public internet, and are built with high redundancy. The same applies to the communication network layers connecting these systems: they too must be redundant, with no single point of failure. This means a single fault should not cause outages on the avionic systems. However, if a fault does occur, it must be identified and resolved quickly, as the airport is then operating at a higher level of risk. Although unlikely, a second fault could occur during this window. Should that happen, full airport operations would need to be suspended, resulting in significant financial losses and reputational damage. Precise documentation of every network component, and the relationships between them, is therefore essential during planning and construction, enabling fast and effective incident and change management during operations.

Solution

ACC operates the telecontrol network at Kuwait Airport using two OSS (Operations Support Systems), one for the active network’s logical services and live-service configuration management (SolarWindsT™), and one for network inventory. VertiGIS ConnectMaster™ handles the latter, providing Network Inventory Management for all passive network layers and active network equipment, giving ACC a complete and accurate record of the physical network.

The documentation of the passive and active network with VertiGIS ConnectMaster started in 2013 and covers the following layers:

Due to its high-availability requirements, ACC operates a Fiber Monitoring System (EXFOTM) to identify fiber damage proactively and begin resolution as quickly as possible. For automated fault location, ACC uses VertiGIS ConnectMaster’s OTDR Fault Location Analyzer combined with the FMON Interface.

Result

ACC successfully operates the passive layers of Kuwait Airport’s high-availability telecontrol network with VertiGIS ConnectMaster, using three concurrent licenses. “For us, it’s essential to have every detail and every redundancy across all network layers under 100% control. It’s also very important that when the airport undergoes expansion, we are well prepared to carry out network extension planning and change management professionally,” says Eng. Wahid Selman, COO-ICT at ACC.

VertiGIS, as a strong technology partner, is proud to have supported ACC’s business since 2013 with software delivery, consulting and support services. “When we have questions about the application of VertiGIS ConnectMaster, it’s important for us to receive quick responses to our support requests,” says Eng. Wahid Selman.

Looking Ahead

ACC is very interested in the upcoming functionality of VertiGIS ConnectMaster. In particular, the new SPoF (Single Point of Failure) Analyzer could help further improve the high level of redundancy planning. For further enhancement of end-to-end visibility across all network layers ACC is considering integrating SolarWinds into ConnectMaster via DSE (Data Synchronisation Engine).

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