Gale Technologies Explains How to Streamline A Network Laboratory

White Paper

White Paper:
Streamlining Network Labs
With Labor-Saving and
Efficiency-Boosting Solutions

How to solve chronic lab problems with a
best-in-class framework for efficient and
secure lab environments

© 2008-2010 Gale Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved

Streamlining Labs | 2

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 3

Problems in Network Labs Today ……………………………………………….. 3

Solutions for the 21st Century Lab ………………………………………………. 5

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 7

About Gale Technologies …………………………………………………….…… 8



Introduction
Verifying the performance and quality of technology products and services before final release is critical
to market success. As a result, network laboratories are major assets for network equipment
manufacturers, service providers, and enterprises. So much so, it is not uncommon to see direct
laboratory capital budgets totaling more than 10% of the R&D budget and for R&D staff to spend, on
average, more than 20% of their time working with laboratory equipment.

Ideally, these laboratory environments, usually constructed with a variety of expensive technical
equipment, should be logical, ordered and efficient environments. Most of these labs, however, are
designed with inefficiencies, redundancies, and limited or non-existent remote capabilities. In reality,
many laboratory environments are inconvenient for the engineers who use them. Terms like "rat’s nest"
or "spaghetti" are commonly used by laboratory engineers to describe these less than ideal environments.
Often, system test specialists and product design engineers spend 50-75% of their time tracking down
and sorting out equipment and cables, configuring and re-configuring patch panels and test equipment,
and manually setting up tests.

The most effective laboratory setups are designed to fully consider the systemic needs of people,
products and test equipment. Effective laboratory setups deliver a higher return on investment by
delivering maximum total benefits for minimum total cost. The effectiveness of a lab setup can be
measured in terms of the degree to which the laboratory setup minimizes the effects of four chronic
laboratory problems:

• Underutilization of equipment
• Inefficient use of professional labor
• Security and safety
• Antiquated methodologies

This white paper will explore how best-in-class labs employ solutions that systematically attack these four
problems using the latest technologies and automation methods available today, with the goal of
providing a high return on investment (ROI) for the entire organization. It will conclude with a proposition
for a framework for creating efficient and secure lab environments.

Problems in Network Labs Today
Understanding the causes and effects of the four chronic lab problems is the first step to overcoming
them.

Under-utilization of equipment that is used in laboratories to test, diagnose and verify
products and services:
Total equipment utilization is affected by many factors, including limited work hours, hoarding
practices, macro facilities design problems and equipment management problems. Because the
equipment must be configured and operated manually, the equipment is often underutilized, and
management must make trade-offs between employee productivity and equipment utilization.
Laboratory equipment is not used during breaks in the work hours, and rarely used after work hours.
Some global organizations have tried to take advantage of the time zone differences and encourage
workers to utilize equipment remotely during downtime in the remote laboratories. But test topologies
cannot be reconfigured remotely, and crashes or other errors cannot be easily resolved without
intervention from an employee at the remote lab. In addition, remote management scripts are typically
limited to single-vendor configurations, because multi-vendor equipment configurations are not easily
operated remotely. As a result, lab employees become frustrated when they cannot meet their
productivity goals.



Moreover, once the remote equipment becomes available to users, they may not always be familiar
with that particular lab environment or be aware of any undocumented changes or configurations that
have been made by the local team at that lab. These equipment-sharing difficulties result in
equipment-hoarding behaviors by certain privileged users or groups. Redundant test equipment must
then be provided since the “shared” equipment is not really being shared as it should be. Many labs
build dedicated monolithic test beds for each feature or type of test required in order to avoid
reconfiguration and sharing issues.

The result is that most lab equipment is idle, on average, more than 60% of the time. Considering the
rapid depreciation schedules of expensive high-tech capital equipment, this problem translates to a
significant financial issue. Yet, surprisingly, measurements of total enterprise laboratory capital
equipment utilization against a 24/7 clock is rarely visible to management.

Inefficient use of professional labor:
Both the laboratory management staff and the laboratory users are typically well paid professionals.
Too often, however, the laboratory setup does not reflect the best utilization of the high-level skills
these professionals possess. For example, repetitive manual configuration of equipment is both time
consuming and error prone – and most of all, not the best use of a professional’s time. In many
laboratory environments one or more professional staff members must be present to arrange and
configure multiple pieces of specialized equipment. The reliance on certain specialists for certain
types of equipment causes a bottleneck that amplifies this problem. From the laboratory user’s point
of view, disorganized and inconsistent methods for configuring different types or makes of equipment
result in a time-consuming, user-unfriendly environment. Many test equipment vendors provide
capabilities for saving test configurations and saving test results. But what about the configuration of
the systems under test, and documentation of test conditions and manual indicators (e.g., power
levels) throughout a test run? And what if a test incorporates multiple types of test equipment?
Accurate documentation becomes a significant source of frustration and inefficiency in a multi-vendor
equipment environment.

The value-added portion of laboratory work is the actual testing effort. The non-value added portion
of laboratory work is the total time required to arrange and configure equipment and to document the
results of the test. It can be shown that most laboratory setups are operating with non-value added
scores of 75% or more. More effective laboratory setups will deliver better than 25% value-added
scores. Surprisingly, these very low value-added scores are rarely tracked and rarely presented to
management.

Assuring security and safety of staff and equipment:
The interconnection and manual operation of equipment is usually conducted by people selecting and
plugging in patch cables directly to equipment or via cable patching systems, usually of the manual
type. Operation and monitoring of devices may be done manually, as well. Cables, fiber optics and
hand controls are subject to inherent, often excessive and abusive manual handling, resulting in the
cables and connectors becoming dirty and/or unreliable, and as such becoming a source of
frustration and non-value-added effort. Furthermore, the type of cable required for any particular
interconnection is dependent on the electrical or optical orientation of the systems that are to be
interconnected. Frequently, it is not apparent which electrical or optical orientation is required, and
therefore incorrect cable selection becomes an additional source of aggravation and error. Engineers
who are not trained adequately for handling equipment that is sensitive to improper power
sequencing, electro-static handling procedures and cable interface standards frequently cause
premature failures of expensive laboratory equipment.

Laboratories provide facilities for both users (e.g., workstations for people) and equipment (e.g.,
racks). People in the lab tend to access the equipment directly, lacking consistent discipline in
arranging interconnections, invariably leading to the "rat’s nest" problem. In addition, the presence of
people in the laboratories introduces contaminants and pollutants that affect the cleanliness and
operation of the equipment. Attempts to address these issues have included locking people out of



the laboratory and restricting access to designated individuals. This has met with limited success
when there is a large group of authorized people or if there are insufficient people to operate the
equipment on behalf of others.

When a laboratory is not explicitly designed with a total enterprise lab perspective of safety and
security from the outset, it is likely to require users to put up with inefficient and inconsistent methods
that are introduced after the fact. Ultimately, they must cope with problems as they arise. It is not
uncommon to see inflexible, manually managed lab policies consisting of mandates that severely
restrict the users’ ability to efficiently do their jobs.

Antiquated methodologies, institutionalized by poor laboratory set-ups:
When a lab is not designed for best-in-class test methodologies, it limits the potential total return on
investment for the organization as a whole. All too often, laboratory design staff are trained and
focused on equipment installation and configurations, but do not adequately understand how to
design the lab setup for the optimum.

Where sharing is employed, lab scheduling is usually inefficient. Scheduling is done, typically with
spreadsheets managed by one person that provide neither enforcement of nor visibility into the
scheduling and usage of lab resources. Without visibility or control of resource usage, proper
resource prioritization is limited.

The lack of coordination among various users and uses of the lab, within a given lab and among
multiple labs within an organization, leads to further waste and inefficiency. A piece of equipment
sitting idle in one lab may be the very piece of equipment required for a test in another lab within the
organization. But without central management or coordination of resources and methods, the result
is often duplicated efforts and equipment. Coordination regarding test management tools and
automation systems used by various users, while critical to the efficient use of the laboratory, is often
left to individual users or labs to specify for individual applications. This results in a range of test
methods being used in the same organization, and the inability to share test case information within
and between labs. The consequence is reduced total efficiency for the organization as a whole.

Solutions for the 21st Century Lab
A best-in-class lab employs solutions that systematically attack these four problems using the latest
technologies and methods available today, and provides a high return on investment for the entire
organization. Such a lab provides facilities to measure and track total capital equipment utilization, value-
added time of the users, and relevant test results. Software test automation combined with current
technologies such as today’s sophisticated UPS and power distribution devices and remote KVM
switches have all contributed to the advancement of high technology labs. However, none of these
solutions have solved the basic inefficiencies associated with multi-user, multi-vendor test labs as
described above.

Operational inefficiencies, manual processes and methodologies, and safety and security problems all
call for a new breed of solution that minimizes manual processes, improves productivity, and provides
access control and security. What is called for is a Lab Operating System™ of sorts, one that
incorporates connectivity management, user and asset management, and remote accessibility. The
following are some of the key features of a best-in-class Lab Operating System.

• Provide a system interface
o Graphical
o APIs for scripting/automation
• Organize logical device and device connection groupings/topologies
• Manage physical device connections
o Data-entry mechanism for physical connection management
o Display mechanism for physical connection administration



• Control connections through physical layer infrastructure
• Schedule resource use
o Forward-looking calendar management
o Job queuing
o Contention management
• Manage users and roles
o User access controls and permissions
o Priority management
o Device grouping and user grouping
• Track devices and device information
o ‘Core’ device information
o Site- and device-specific information
• Store and present data
o Utilization of devices
o User activity
o Configurations and schedules
• Integrate with existing lab systems
o Scripts, script servers
o Automated test systems
o Power controllers, etc.
• Operate consistently across multiple technologies, interfaces, devices, and sites

Some of these features have been partially addressed by home-grown solutions in many companies.
However, addressing the entire solution in-house is usually a costly, time-consuming, and resource-
draining endeavor. Gale Technologies has built upon these features to create an advanced, innovative
lab management solution – Gale Lab Manager – which delivers the following benefits:

Automation enables more efficient management of lab resources:
The Lab Manager application from Gale Technologies is a groundbreaking software platform for
automating lab usage. The system is an open platform for managing, scheduling, and tracking test
equipment and network devices in labs, providing a layer of abstraction on a physical-layer switching
infrastructure for the lab that connects copper, coax, and optical interfaces between test systems and
systems under test. The automated connections result in better-than-manual accuracy and
efficiency. The system also automates many of the documentation activities that must otherwise be
performed manually. Test configurations are automatically documented. Test cases can be stored
and retrieved. Equipment usage is automatically tracked, allowing for better management and
planning of lab resources. In all, the automation capabilities provided by the system reduces non-
value-added activities, allowing lab personnel to focus on the actual testing and other value-added
activities.

Remote access and scripting allow 24x7 usage of test equipment:
With development and test resources increasingly being implemented in off-shore locations, remote
lab access is a key aspect of a best-in-class lab. Lab Manager provides remote access for users
from workstations anywhere. Remote capabilities, such as discovering devices that are in the lab,
designing and saving test configurations, running tests and scripts, making and breaking connections,
power cycling, and tapping connections for monitoring make it possible for local and off-site users
alike to access full lab functionality remotely, even during times when no one is in or near the lab.
This is made possible by Lab Manager’s feature-rich Graphical User Interface and/or API
transparently controlling physical-layer switches and power switches. Remotely accessible multi-user
scheduling and equipment reservations, and easy-to-use test controls allow multiple users to
efficiently schedule lab time and control test devices. Configurations no longer need to be dedicated
or kept in place just to avoid the work of re-configuring the test set-up at another time. Instead, users
may reserve equipment only for the time periods they actually need it. An overnight test by a remote
engineer may occur, and the system automatically reconfigures the setup needed for the local



engineer in the morning. That ensures that local and remote engineers are working on the most up-
to-date version of the tested product or device. These features enable multi-location corporations to
maximize usage of their laboratory equipment, and minimize or potentially eliminate the incidence of
duplicating lab setups in multiple locations.

Hands-off operation promotes security and safety:
With Lab Manager, test configurations are automatically created from pools of devices that are
connected to switching infrastructures, creating a “hands-off lab” and thereby eliminating many of the
security, safety, and cleanliness issues in labs. Problems associated with dirty fibers, bad cables,
and incorrect cables are drastically reduced. Security is assured with access controls that provide for
customized access and use privileges. User access may be controlled with regard to which devices
can be used, read/write/execute privileges for topologies, and scheduling parameters, including
duration of time that equipment may be reserved, and schedule priorities.

Layer 1 automation provides a foundation for achieving new levels of productivity:
The automation of physical layer reconfigurations results in faster test cycles and increased
productivity. Eliminating the bottleneck of manual re-cabling allows automated testing to be fully
optimized. Users may search for devices that have the features and functions needed for a particular
test. Test topologies may be defined with generic devices, allowing the system to automatically find
and assign equipment that matches specified characteristics and is available at the time needed. All
of these features provide for maximized utilization of resources along with minimized frustration and
difficulty for those who are using the lab.

Along with increased utilization of lab resources, Lab Manager provides visibility and tracking of that
utilization. Assets are accounted for and details about their usage are easily accessible, including
what percentage of the time they are utilized, who is using them, and in what test configurations are
they being used.

Conclusion
The vast majority of system-level labs used by today’s networking equipment manufacturers and service
providers are not as efficient as they should be. Because high productivity is required for marketplace
success, even survival, there are clear and immediate benefits to streamlining laboratories with labor-
saving and efficiency-boosting solutions. By unifying lab resources in a seamless and dynamically
configurable framework, Gale’s Lab Manager can provide multiple payoffs, namely reduced time and cost
of testing, reduced human error, increased leverage of equipment investment, and improved asset
tracking.



For More Information

To learn more about Gale Technologies and its products, please call us at +1 866-450-3366 toll free in
North America or +1 408-213-4922 worldwide, visit us at www.galetechnologies.com , or email
info@galetechnologies.com .

About Gale Technologies
Gale Technologies provides advanced software solutions to automate, orchestrate, and optimize
resources – transforming the process of infrastructure service delivery. As a pioneer of innovative
solutions for provisioning and workflow automation across networking, server, storage, and virtualization
technologies, Gale enables the automated and self-service provisioning of private and public cloud
environments. The company’s end-to-end solutions enable organizations to reduce capital and
operational expenditures, set up any dynamic lab, demo, data center, or cloud in just minutes, and
provide secure access to resources 24x7 from anywhere in the world. Gale Technologies is based in
Santa Clara, CA, and serves a global customer base with offices in North America and Asia.

Gale Technologies, Inc.
2350 Mission College Blvd, Suite 825
Santa Clara, CA 95054
+1 408-213-4900
info@galetechnologies.com


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