Cutting Networks Across Mines

Scaw Steel Industry has been engaged in the process of smelting iron and
steel from its mines in Orissa. The company is a part of the Atha Group of
Companies, and was started by Gaurav Atha a year back. Atha Group of Companies
is originally a steel mining company and has been in the mining business for
over 15 years with ancillary business investments in other related fields. With
an upcoming facility in the port-city of Haldia in West Bengal, the company has
a presence across Orissa and also has its own mining facilities in Barbil,
spread across 400 acres of hilly area. The company has also started an 8MW power
plant in Dhenkanal and has a steel melting facility in Athagarh.

Taking into consideration

the available and potential resources, Scaw wanted to fully secure its
facilities across Orissa. It wanted to link its power and smelting plants with
the mining facility. The idea was to monitor the entire operations of the
company from its headquarters in Bhubaneswar. Orissa-based Printlink Computer
and Com­muni­cations was appointed for the task.

Client requirements

Sourav Mohapatra of Printlink was appointed to lead the project and look
after the networking of the entire bases of Scaw. The company already had a
basic framework in place. While analyzing the situation, Mohapatra realized that
the primary requirement was for a VPN-based solution catering to the LAN
requirements. Next in row was to secure the several bases across the state and
link with the primary server facili­tating monitoring systems from the head
office.

“While analyzing the company's operational aspects, we noted that there was a
need to centralize the company with its multiple bases. Being located in a large
state with its mines and manufacturing units located far from one another and
the head-office, we realized that offering a simple VPN connectivity would not
solve the problem. It called for more effort, particularly in the mine area at
Barbil,” said Sumanta Pradhan, GM-Marketing, Printlink Computer and
Communications.

Soon, Printlink came up with multiple solutions after under­taking a thorough
geographical survey of the company and listed down the cost-effective options
and alternatives in offering after facing challenging situations in the course
of the project deployment.

Roadblocks

In the initial phase, it seemed that there was little to worry about since a
VPN access powered by 8GB memory would solve the problem of connectivity.
How­ever, as the project progressed, new challenges emerged which Printlink had
not thought of before.

“In the initial phase of the deployment at the head-office, there was little
to agonize over as the facility in Bhubaneswar had a good IT infrastructure
backed by effective power supply and connectivity. It was during the mid-stage
of the deployment that the challenges emerged, especially in the mining fields
at Barbil,” Mohapatra said.

A hilly area 1,000ft above sea level, Barbil is situated in one of the least
developed areas of Orissa. With communication facilities taking a back seat with
nearly zero percent telecom facilities near the mines, it was hard for Printlink
to deploy fiber-optical wires in the area. In addition, usage of fiber optics
was also not feasible as the area is prone to dynamite charges for ore
extraction, which tends to disturb and tear the fiber texture making the
connection slow and in some cases, resulting in complete breakdown.

In later stages, allocation of the server bandwidth distributed across all
installations and installation of the security features posed a big hurdle, as
the frequency of the connectors distributing bandwidth in the VPN varied across
locations.

Offering a solution

The basic framework for connecting several bases was built on the VPN
network solution with key servers located in the head-office at Bhubaneswar and
other supporting servers at other facilities. Selecting the traditional
fiber-connectivity mode as its preference for connecting the plants and
head-office and manufacturing and smelting units, Printlink deployed two primary
IBM Class X3400 servers in Bhubaneswar, allotting a bandwidth of 1000Mbps LAN.

In the next place, the entire management of the networking solution was
conducted through switches across various points within the head-office. Also,
as a security measure, to prevent data leakage and theft, McAfee anti-virus
protection (enterprise edition) was installed, controlled by the server keeping
UTM-based security solutions open for future reference.

“Being an Enterprise Partner of McAfee, it was easy for us to acquire and
install the security software as we know the exact points of security breach in
the network. Also, for VPN-based flexible WAN and LAN protocols, McAfee provides
best security despite complaints of worksta­tions becoming slower in terms of
performance,” Mohapatra added while commenting on security deployment.

The solution was modified completely in the minefield at Barbil. Straying
away from the traditional mode, Printlink installed Motorola WAN systems based
on P2P connectivity using the back-hole technique sprea­ding across a radius of
10km.

Insisting on the use of WAN, Pradhan informed, “In Barbil, the main problem
was locating the points of installation of the WAN as the area is used for ore
extraction. The area is constantly fluctuating because of the rise and fall of
sea-level due to ore extraction activities resulting in break points in the
bandwidth signals. Also, we found that there was a steady drop in frequency
signals resulting from the deviation from the optical wires.”

It is here that, Printlink completely strayed away from the normal mode of
WAN connections and brought in the Motorola Canopy providing full area coverage
despite sea-level fluctuations. Also, additional stabilizers and reflectors were
installed to regularize the fall in bandwidth. The total deploy­ment spreads
across Orissa from its capital to the remotest mine­fields offering a steady
mixture of LAN and WAN network protocols built on a VPN platform with X3400
backed by 8GB memory support.



Satisfied clients

Commenting on the successful deployment of the VPN project, Debadatta Dash,
Manager-IT, Scaw Steel Industry said, “We have over 185 computers running across
all locations in the state and will be shortly coming up with another 50
workstations in Haldia. Hence there was an urgent need to install a VPN network
connecting all the locations along with a LAN facility in each block. We are
completely satisfied with the way Printlink has delivered the deployment and
would like them to provide us with printer-based solutions now.”

Printlink has already worked on a UPS-based solution for Scaw before the
commencement of this project. Presently, Printlink is on its way to deliver
firewall-based solutions in the LAN facilities and will be coming up with UTM-based
solutions across the main VPN network. Catering to the present demands of the
IBM Class X3400 servers, an additional 8GB memory capacity will be installed by
the end of this year.

AVISHEK RAKSHIT

avishekr@cybermedia.co.in