Sprint

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Description:
The long distance carrier, Sprint, has adopted high -efficiency object technology. In Sprint's case, the company is using a variety of object technologies, including Object Request Brokers (ORBs), to build a distributed infrastructure that ingrates the management of diverse network switching equipment. ORBs from ExperSoft and other companies are enabled Sprint to construct a management application that tracks the performance of the computer gear that runs the network.

John Strand, Sprint's director of technology planning and integration, provides insight to the situation: "We've been involved in the project now for more than three years. It evolved out the need within companies that provide network services, especially large ones, to be able to track network systems. In any large business, when you have a network, you have a lot of equipment that needs to be managed--hubs, switches, etc. Every time you add a new piece, you add a new management system, so the network manager has to monitor multiple systems to ensure continued service."

Unfortunately, as Strand points out, "the systems are not the same--you have to deal with different versions, different hardware architectures, and more besides. Sprint has a worldwide network with different types of components, all of which must be linked together. The industry has been working for years to come up with a single integrated systems that could put the management of all of these parts into one system."

After attempts with other options, Sprint moved to object technology. "We have a very large distributed network. I wanted it to be object-based because of [object technology's] reuse capacity, modular construction, and the fact that you can build things fast with it than with other methods."

Once the die was cast, Strand decided that Sprint would do best with a distributed network management systems. That was three years ago. At the time, he explains, there were "not too many choice of ORBs; only IONA and ExperSoft was even close to having a product. We selected ExperSoft based on our technical evaluation."

Along the way, Sprint learned that "we needed more than one type of object." Strand pointed out that "we were one of the first to see the need for and push for different types of generate objects in the code." Sprint also found that "CORBA standards were more robust that we has thought. We've also discovered that we can exchange one type of ORB for another, and communicate between hem." Thus the model Sprint created was not limited by the standards, but liberated by them.

Today, the system is working on a nations six-gigabit test network called. Magic. The Magic testbed is supported by a consortium of industry, government, and academic institutions such as DARPA and Lawrence Berkeley Labs. Its administrative abilities are also used by groups such as the Mayo clinic. From Strand's point of view, Magic "serves as a pathfinder for new development."