Goals

Decide on best plan for communications architecture, route selection, bandwidth management and whether or not to move forward with cell comms capability.

Schedule

Worked completed by early July so we can have several opportunities to test before Pacific Northwest cruises.

Attendees

Agenda

Background

• CANON-style experiments on the increase
  • Experiments need data sharing
• Projects no longer wanting to 'pay' for engineers to ride along
• Very good success on other projects with cell comms (ESP, LRAUV)
• We installed Cradlepoint for Southern California Cruise
• Verizon had poor coverage which was unexpected
• Worked well when within range (no bandwidth management which is not economical)
• Could remotely support systems during CANON experiment
• AT&T Modem sent to John which worked really well
• AT&T system on bridge has been successful
• Upon return to Monterey, trying to improve route selection and bandwidth management
  • Many, many problems which resulted in service disruptions

Current Status

• VSAT only plugged into core router
• Very minimal bandwidth management

Plans Moving Forward

• Extensive Dock Side Testing (test plans)
• Ride along after changes made (only schedule changes when we can ride along)

Route Selection Options

• Copper, Microwave, VSAT with hard switch
  • Pros:
    • Always know which route is enabled
    • If one route is having issues, crew has control
  • Cons:
    • Have to remember to manually switch it
    • No bandwidth management
    • When no microwave, no remote access (might be work arounds with ship initiated tools - GoToMeeting, etc.)
    • When no microwave, cannot establish permanent VPN tunnel
    • When no microwave, ship is essentially isolated from shore-side access so difficult to support without anybody on board
• Copper, Microwave, VSAT with core router doing selection (current)
  • Pros:
    • 1 less path (cell) to deal with in route selection
  • Cons:
    • Route selection with routers is problematic
    • When no microwave, will have to pay when more bandwidth is necessary
    • When no microwave, no remote access (might be work arounds with ship initiated tools - GoToMeeting, etc.)
    • When no microwave, cannot establish permanent VPN tunnel
    • When no microwave, ship is essentially isolated from shore-side access so difficult to support without anybody on board
• Copper, Microwave, Cell, VSAT with hard switch
  • Pros:
    • When in cell range, with Verizon/AT&T connectivity, we can see core router
    • When in cell range, can establish permanent VPN
    • Can troubleshoot and support from shore
    • When in cell range, data costs are lower
    • When in cell range, data throughput is higher (more bandwidth)
  • Cons:
    • Have to remember to manually switch it (won't know when back in cell range)
• Copper, Microwave, Cell, VSAT with TBD route selection hardware/software (TBD)
  • Pros:
    • Same as previous, plus
    • Route selection happens automatically
    • Most cost effective (will choose most economical route)
  • Cons:
    • May be another box (or core router replacement/configuration) in the stack where things could go wrong
    • If another box needed, we will have to pay for hardware
  • NOTE: Hard switch could/should be implemented in a parallel with any automatic selection mechanism

Bandwidth Management

• Core router management
  • Pros:
    • Most cost effective (we have the hardware we need)
  • Cons:
    • Managing bandwidth done at the protocol level (very tedious)
    • Not able to discriminate between different applications on same protocol to same region, e.g. web browsing McMaster Carr vs Windows Updates
• Core router with packet shaper
  • Pros:
    • Bandwidth management very targeted (media type) and easier to manage
    • That what it is built for
  • Cons:
    • Another box in the stack which could fail
    • Purchase cost of packet shaper (~$3K)
• WAN Optimization (still in research phase)
  • Pros:
    • Caching of resources increases access speeds
    • Statistics show up to 60% reduction in bandwidth usage (saves money for comms)
  • Cons:
    • Another box where failure could occur
    • Expensive

Core Router Failure Recovery

• 2nd core router that can be swapped in
  • Pros:
    • A backup router will be available in case of failure
  • Cons:
    • Will have to purchase two routers (current one not available any more): Cisco 2921 (with security licensing) (~$5K)
• Separate wireless network in which we could plug in VSAT in case of router failure
  • Pros:
    • Can completely bypass the core router in case of failure
  • Cons:
    • A fair amount of work to install
    • Ship servers and computers will be completely isolated from shore (is that a pro?)

Cell System Costs

• Support Engineering already has paid for hardware
• With proper bandwidth management and/or WAN optimization costs should be minimal - $25-$50/month

Recommendations

• Maximize performance on RC's VSAT today, by blocking all outbound traffic from the ship except http/https, ftp, imap, pop, smtp to MBARI (with the possible addition of other low bandwidth messaging for ship position or what have you). This should be extremely effective, allowing quality access to timecards, POs, etc, but may be too limiting for them. If they want http to the world so be it, with the knowledge that will make things slower. Verify Automatic Update is disabled on all permanent shipboard machines.
• Proceed with acquisition of Palo Alto ($3K) for bandwidth shaping, implement manual switch array for manual route selection, and continue to research ways to improve route auto-selection. Explore implementing a cheap/free web proxy VM (to run on RC-ESX1), to improve web browsing performance.
• Continue research on WAN optimization, and determine whether budget support for a $30-50K+ solution is likely for 2015. If a spare router is justified, budget a pair of replacements for 2015, or see if a certified refurb is available for a price we can afford now.

Questions/Plans/Actions

• Are there any plans for configuring the RC's VSAT service similar to the Flyer's (e.g. with ground station router for bidirectional comms), either with current service provider or switching to the same one the Flyer uses?
• If cell is a go, proper mounting (bridge with external dual frequency antennas for AT&T and Verizon)