Tier 1 Service Provider Achieves 4,400% Increase in Router Upgrades Per Cycle with Itential
INDUSTRY
Communications Service Provider
GOALS
- Optimize Upgrade Maintenance Windows
- Eliminate Manual Errors
- Reduce Costs
- Reduce Risks of Network Downtime
USE CASES
Router Upgrades
INTEGRATIONS
Key Results
Accelerated upgrade time per router from 4 hours to 45 minutes.
Increased router upgrades per maintenance window by 4400%.
Significantly reduced risk of human error.
Automated 10,000 jobs annually to alleviate engineer workloads.
Saved over $200k per router upgrade cycle.
Manual Router Upgrades Taking Too Long, Fraught with Human Error
With more than 100 million subscribers and more than 150,000 employees relying on its network, this leading wireless telecommunications provider couldn’t afford downtime for upgrading their network. Every year, the company allotted just 200 five-hour maintenance windows for network updates. At one point, its operations team faced a daunting 10,000 network maintenance jobs with only 1,000 hours of available time to perform them.
A typical manual router upgrade, for example, would take hours to complete with pre- and post-checks. If employees increased their pace, they risked introducing mistakes that could drastically impact the company’s critical network areas, such as its core router site. In addition to excessive demands for network updates, the customer faced impending OPEX restrictions that reduced employee resources to complete the changes manually. In response, they began delaying upgrades.
This company’s operations staff needed an automated solution that could take the pressure off its employees and supercharge its maintenance capabilities, while reducing the risk of significant network failures.
It was impossible to get through all the upgrades we needed to make with the change windows we had. Every year it was just going to keep piling up.
Network Engineer
Why They Chose Itential to Automate Major Router Updates
Having trusted Itential on a previous project, this telecommunications giant chose the Itential Automation Platform to automate the upgrade of more than 800 mid-sized routers in just one month. The manual benchmark to beat was one router every 2.5 hours.
They also leveraged the platform to automate changes to the company’s core router site, which required more than four hours to complete a single manual update. Speed, in this case, was not the only requirement. Company engineers needed assurance that faster updates would not introduce mistakes that would compromise the integrity of the network.
Itential was also used to automate the complete deployment of new virtual route reflectors to improve communications between routers. With Itential, they were able to automate router upgrades at scale through our:
- Support for any network device or type for automating router upgrades in one single platform.
- Low-code workflow canvas for building end-to-end orchestrations using drag-and-drop integration with your IT ecosystem; ITSM, IPAM, notifications, and more.
- Robust pre-check and post-check policies with automatic rollback for managing Day 2 change management.
By leveraging Itential to automate our router upgrades, we were able to accelerate our cycle time per router, from 4 hours to 45 minutes. Without Itential, we would not have been able to perform the necessary upgrades required each year.
Senior Manager, Network Planning
Router Update Automation Outpaces Supply
Upon deployment of the Itential Automation Platform, the customer witnessed an accelerated rate from just 2 router updates in a five-hour maintenance window to more than 90 in the same window for a 4,400% increase. This increase has the potential to produce more than $200,000 of cost savings per upgrade cycle. At that pace, the customer began to consider if it could provide enough routers to meet demands.
Itential also helped the customer reduce manual update times to its core routing site from 4 hours to 45 minutes, while eliminating the potential for human error that could take down the network. This approach includes automation of the pre- and post-checks on all data and devices to ensure faster and more accurate upgrade deployments. Now, if something begins to go wrong during the update, engineers can pause or roll back their steps, which was much more difficult to do in manual mode.
With the increased speed, accuracy and strides made in automating the operations and oversight of its networks, this massive wireless telecommunication company is planning to expand Itential’s capabilities to other parts of their business.
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