East Japan Railway Company (JR East) has deployed a “Common Station Network” based on SDN across all 36 of its stations in the Yamanote Line area. The software-defined network makes it possible to carry out integrated network management across all stations, enabling JR East to establish and provide new services easier.
NEC installed the SDN-based Common Station Network in March 2014. The project included:
- Installation of NEC UNIVERGE PF Series switches, which are among the first such products in the world to be compatible with OpenFlow.
- Across all stations, including Tokyo Station, a total of 20 SDN controllers and 174 SDN switches have been installed.
- NEC has created a large-scale, high-capacity network with a high degree of availability by connecting all stations on the Yamanote Line and stations in the same area on the Chuo Line in a ring configuration, using an IP network consisting of fiber optic cables.
In addition to enabling visualization and integrated management of the entire network, the Common Station Network uses software to enable JR East to configure networks or make multiple changes to settings centrally, rather than doing so every time a new service is launched or station improvement works are carried out, as previously.