T-Mobile

01. challenges

The company has agreements with around 320 roaming partners that give customers of the “Mobile operator of the year 2008” (connect, 04/08) automatic access to their usual services in foreign networks around the globe. In addition to conventional closed source products, T-Mobile has also been using open source software since 2003.

The monitoring software and Wireshark, a tool for analyzing network traffic, proved to be the “best fit” solutions for use in the company’s roaming area due to the high demands placed on individualization and the undeniable cost savings. The rapid implementation and high degree of scalability also ensure that IT managers at T-Mobile are increasingly using open source solutions.

02. solutions

NETWAYS GmbH has been supporting T-Mobile in the use and scaling of monitoring software in the company since 2005. In the course of the collaboration, not only was the in-house network integrated into the monitoring, but data roaming in international GSM networks was also established and continuously expanded.

The monitoring software was initially used exclusively to monitor the company’s own network. Today it is the main monitoring system for ensuring GSM network connectivity and data roaming performance management, as well as normal host and service monitoring. The monitoring checks carried out by T-Mobile cover over 450 foreign GSM networks and almost all countries that operate a GSM network.

The existing monitoring environment was expanded as part of a monitoring workshop to implement the Monitoring-Grapher charting tool developed by NETWAYS, a monitoring add-on for generating graphics and performance charts from the return values from monitoring with the monitoring software. After completing various live tests with a special test system, which were carried out across both data centers, the problems that came to light were resolved and the system was successfully transferred to normal operation. In addition to the high availability achieved by the virtual environment, there is a further advantage: in future, only a single system will need to be maintained.

03. success

Performance monitoring, which NETWAYS has adapted precisely to the needs of T-Mobile and offers a significant simplification in terms of monitoring management. Charts are created from the collected data, which allow a precise analysis of the monitored systems. The information obtained on the availability of services and servers can be used to determine long-term trends and create forecasts in order to quickly and efficiently identify and eliminate any problems that arise.

In 2008, the monitoring environment at T-Mobile underwent a comprehensive redesign. All three monitoring product servers in use were migrated from V2 to V3, while at the same time the usability and maintenance of the system was considerably simplified through the use of a template-based configuration. NETWAYS also provided advice and support during the conversion of the monitoring system to a purely virtual platform, thus contributing to a considerable increase in the flexibility and performance of the monitoring system. In the new setup, the monitoring software servers are set up redundantly as virtual machines. In the event of a failure, the failed component is immediately replaced by another server and operations are kept running without any externally recognizable disruption.

In addition, the rollout of monitoring to other T-Mobile networks in the UK, the Netherlands, Austria and the Czech Republic is planned, as well as the adaptation of our existing plug-ins to the constant changes within the GSM network. We are also looking forward to an interesting and continued successful cooperation in view of the other upcoming projects in which NETWAYS GmbH will support us, not only in the area of monitoring,” says Christian Hirsch (System Engineer Int. Roaming at T-Mobile).