SD-WAN: Getting State WANs ready for Digital India

Paving a path ahead of times – Virtual India – GOI’s Digital India is at its full swing. With 3 key vision areas – Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen, Governance and Services on Demand and Digital Empowerment of Citizens – the programme is rapidly progressing in embedding the bedrock – India’s Future Network. 

The core – Its getting laid now …

The core of India’s Digital Dream lies in Network Infrastructure.

Project Bharat Net is propelling implementation of Optic Fibre cables to connect 250,000-gram panchayats of India to the internet. The next challenge lies in connecting the biggest enterprise – The Government of India. Connect all State/UT Headquarters up to the Block level via District/sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical.

To achieve the same The Government has approved the Scheme for establishing State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) across the country, in March 2005. This structure will allow a minimum bandwidth capacity of 2 Mbps per link. Each of the State / UT can enhance the bandwidth up to 34 Mbps between SHQ and DHQ and upto 8 Mbps between DHQ and BHQ depending upon the utilization.

Ending the Network cul-de-sac

In the past proprietary communication protocols were used to connect devices to each other, standardized IP allowed the connection of devices to a common LAN infrastructure Network (Switches and Routers), post which it opens the gateway to remote internet connectivity allowing end-users to view, control and manage far-flung devices​ and systems.

Today with most of these new technologies using IP connectivity to provide communications and control of security systems over LAN and internet connections. With the availability of high-speed broadband connectivity up to Gram Panchayats, it would be easier for the Central and State Governments to deliver various G2B, G2G and G2C services to the citizens across the county over WAN, boosting e-Governance.

Delivering Internet with a Bolt

SWAN has been integrated with NKN in 29 States/UTs at SHQ level and 440 at the district level to provide the high bandwidth. The States have been utilizing the core infrastructure of SWAN for better connectivity, dedicated close user application access connectivity, and higher bandwidth.

Increasing digitization amongst States has led to higher utilization of bandwidth. Presently, 30 States/UTs are utilizing more than 60% of the bandwidth of the existing link capacity. To monitor the performance of SWANs, the Department has mandated positioning of Third Party Auditors (TPAs) in the States/UTs. As on date, 29 States have empanelled the TPAs for monitoring the performance of the SWANs in the respective States/ UTs. Remaining States/UTs are in the process of empanelment of TPA.

Putting Data Centres on Cloud

Further to boost and simplify e-governance, Next -Gen Data Centres are being implemented in 21 States/UTs to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure in order to provide efficient electronic delivery of Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B) services.

These services can be rendered by the States through common service delivery platforms seamlessly supported by core connectivity infrastructure SWAN and CSCs as the front-end delivery outlets at the village level.

Some of the key functionalities that can be provided through SDC are the central repository for the State, secure data storage, online delivery of services, citizen information/ services portal, State Intranet Portal, disaster recovery, remote management and service integration, etc. SDCs also provide better operation & management control with a minimized overall cost of data management, IT resource management, deployment and other costs for States/UTs.

MeghRaj- Cloud beyond the Horizon

The success of Mission Digital India lies in how well we utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud. The Government of India has embarked upon an ambitious initiative – GI Cloud which has been named as ‘MeghRaj’ – to accelerate

delivery of e-Services in the country while optimizing ICT spending of the Government.

According to latest government reports – Here are some major benefits of GI Cloud are as listed below:

• Driving cost efficiencies with increased utilization of IT Infrastructure resources through the cloud.

• Enable conversion of CAPEX to OPEX, paving the way for consumption based billing and faster procurement of IT Infrastructure services.

• Rapid development, deployment and re-use of ICT applications.

• On demand scalability of infrastructure to meet the long-term capacity requirements and elasticity to cater to the peak load requirements.

Choosing the right indigenous next generation networking technology

At Lavelle Networks, we are proud and excited to be able to create the next generation networking technology for our State WAN initiatives. Powered by web scale software architecture, we see our platforms being able to deliver the fastest transition to the upgrades for State WAN.

Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is currently driving the network innovation curve at a tremendous speed. Given that WAN infrastructure once laid down is not easy to change, we see enterprises – private and public, choose our SD-WAN solutions to future proof their distributed networking needs. Digital India is a reality, and Lavelle Networks is part of this journey to help our governments – central and state, be able to leverage the true power of the cloud.

We live in an age where indigenous technology is needed for all our country’s needs, and we are driven at Lavelle Networks to help Digital India scale without hindrance from the fear of technology obsolescence. No one understands the home better than the family which stays in it. In the heart of India’s software capital – Bangalore, our team continues to innovate to bring home the best of network technology.

Referred Sources: http://meity.gov.in/content/state-wide-area-network-swan