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50+

Defects reduced to a single-digit backlog

30%

Increase in successful CI runs

Challenge

One of the company’s core products is a generic hardware and infrastructure server platform designed to host one or more telecom applications and provide reliable and scalable services. Unfortunately, the products had a number of prior software-related problems, which undermined their quality.

To address this, the company decided to overhaul the R&D for their switching and routing mechanisms, starting with a consolidation of the number of suppliers and production sites. 

Solution

The client came to Orion for this overhaul. Orion was already providing the customer with development and maintenance services, with a track record of being reliable partners. With the successful collaboration, the customer assigned Orion as an end-to-end partner for all the R&D activities.

Orion began by performing a complete knowledge transfer from the prior suppliers at short notice. In as little as two months, Orion concluded the knowledge transfer and took over full responsibility for the product design. Our team showed the client prompt and significant progress in terms of both product quality and new functionality, and then quickly embarked on an ambitious improvement program aimed at:

  • Architecture analysis and deployment of systemized technical improvements such as a single-thread SNMP handler;
  • Introduction of static analysis tools as part of the nightly build procedures;
  • Improvement of the test coverage and automated test cases stability, including the implementation of a Continuous Integration framework.

All of the above was done in parallel with the development of new features requested by the customer. As part of this project, Orion also implemented a VLAN translation feature that enables the product users to significantly reduce the time and complexity of the initial system configuration and its further adjustments.

Impact

After six months of full product responsibility, the team accomplished the following:

  • Reduction of the total number of defects from 50+ to a single-digit backlog.
  • Stabilization of the test and CI environment: the number of successful CI runs has increased from under 50% to over 80%
  • Reduced cost by improving R&D efficiency

Major Features:

  • Security updates for switching and routing components (ANSSI)
  • IPv4/32 & IPv6/128 route handling
  • VRRP tracking BFD, VRRP
  • Next-hops in a ECMP group
  • Ability to pre-configure port density using DHCP
  • BGP support in line with RFC 4271, RFC 4760 and RFC 3392
  • NET-SNMP single-thread handling
  • Excessive number of LSAs in OSPF DB (OSPF DB limits)

Backend Technologies:

  • C/C++
  • Java
  • Erlang

Network Technologies:

  • Broadcom StrataXGS NPU
  • IPv4/IPv6 stack
  • SNMP
  • NetConf
  • L2: 1G/10G/40G Ethernet, VLAN
  • L3+: OSPFv2/v3, BGP-4/BGP-4+

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FAQs

Your questions,
answered.

Product R&D modernization in telecom improves how hardware and software products are designed, tested, and maintained. It helps manufacturers reduce defects, improve reliability, and deliver new switching, routing, and network features faster. 

Software quality is critical because telecom equipment must support reliable, scalable, and secure network services. Poor software quality can affect routing, switching, uptime, customer experience, and the performance of telecom applications.

Continuous integration helps telecom teams test code more frequently and detect issues earlier. It improves build stability, reduces defects, and supports faster delivery of new network features without compromising product reliability. 

Automated testing helps reduce manual effort, improve test coverage, and identify software defects earlier. For telecom products, it supports more stable releases, better performance, and faster validation of complex networking features. 

Telecom companies should consider supplier consolidation when product ownership is fragmented, quality issues increase, or delivery becomes inconsistent. Consolidation can improve accountability, reduce handoff delays, and create a more unified product development process. 

Architecture analysis helps identify technical weaknesses, performance bottlenecks, and areas for system improvement. In telecom platforms, it can improve scalability, reliability, and support for complex network protocols and infrastructure requirements. 

VLAN translation helps simplify network configuration by allowing VLAN identifiers to be adjusted between different network segments. It reduces setup complexity and supports easier management of telecom infrastructure environments.

R&D modernization reduces defects by improving code quality, testing practices, build processes, and technical architecture. It helps teams detect issues earlier and maintain a more stable backlog of software improvements. 

Answer