Connecting an Environmental Science Research Company’s Data to the People who Need Access
Environmental Research Company
Sommita builds a combination wired and wireless network infrastructure to support the collection and dissemination of environment science data for end users in government, science and academia.
The Opportunity
Based on the work Sommita performed for an IT executive at another company, we were tapped by that executive to partner with them to design and deploy a national network whose purpose was to collect, catalogue and disseminate environmental ecosystem data.
The Strategy
Sommita consulted on the design of a network inclusive of terrestrial and non-terrestrial network connectivity. Leveraged wired connectivity for the field offices and both cellular wireless and satellite IP technologies for their remote field locations.
The Result
Today, nearly more than half of the planned 120 remote data collections sites are connected and collecting data. All sites are managed through twenty field offices connected with an MPLS core network.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, this company was tasked with going into some of the farthest and remote sections of the continental U.S., Alaska and Puerto Rico to measure conditions related to environment change. Part of this network would include field offices with support staff who managed scientific instrumentation at groups of remote locations.
Reality dictated that some of the places where the earth communicates the clearest and best are also some of its most remote. Places where it is a distinct challenge at best, an impossibility at worst, to bring wires to connect data collection computers with humans who want to interact with them.
Sommita quickly determined a network to support the endeavor would need to be multi-pronged in its connectivity options. So, we looked to the air and the stars. We crafted a blueprint that supplied a network platform which used both cellular wireless data and satellite Internet connectivity to connect computers in the middle of nowhere with the humans who wanted to talk to them anywhere. The resulting infrastructure took the data generated by these remote systems and fed it to the inter-connected core HQ and data center networks we also helped establish. The field offices which managed sectors of the remote locations were in turn connected to the central HQ hub network with an MPLS core backbone.
Ultimately, we further expanded their network footprint with a private fiber network connecting this national network to their data centers. Now, the voice of our earth and its climate is being fed to academia, scientific research organizations and the US government.