Implement phase

In the implement phase, the goal is to integrate devices and new capabilities in accordance with the design and without compromising network availability or performance. The implementation phase is where the actual implementation of the design starts. This phase includes deploying the network equipment and configuring it.

Site audits are reviewed and the actual implementation of the devices, including rack and stack power on testing is done in this stage. Some of the documents required for this stage include detailed installation documents for each type of equipment and the test process for each device type. Further, Network Implementation Plan (NIP) documents are created that are detailed documents for each site that is a part of the network. These documents lay down the list of equipment to be deployed at the site, the rack layouts, port connectivity diagrams, and the actual device configurations, along with the IP addressing and other variable parameters for each device at the site. The configurations are derived based on the configuration templates that were created and tested in the design phase. This document becomes the reference document for the implementation engineer who has to simply download the configuration onto the new devices and conduct the tests that are specific to the site.

Once all sites are up and ready, and the WAN connectivity is established, end-to-end service testing is conducted based on the NRFU test cases.

Any migration of existing services or any integration of networks with the existing network infrastructure is also carried out in this phase and the success validated against the test cases as defined in the NRFU document.