A flexible network ready for business growth (in Englisch)

The Situation

With international operations in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and the USA, Urenco provides some 25% of the enriched uranium required globally for power generation. The roots of the company lie in independent British, Dutch and German research, and today the need to communicate effectively and securely across its international operations is more important than ever.

Recognizing that consistent and well-managed IT and telecoms services underpin their ability to collaborate effectively, Urenco outsourced this specialist competence to CSC in 2004. As a leading global consulting, systems integration and outsourcing company, CSC provides ICT design and management solutions across a wide array of industries.

Working together with CSC, KPN International has designed and implemented an enhanced company-wide network for Urenco which both satisfies the client’s immediate requirements and creates a dynamic platform for rapid future expansion.

Early days

The relationship between Urenco and KPN International pre-dates the outsourcing agreement with CSC. Initially, KPN International provided connection services to the Urenco plant in Almalo in the Netherlands, and in 2003 scope was extended to provide network connectivity across four European Urenco sites.
The initial service was fit-for-purpose, reliable and secure, delivering 2 Mbit/s connectivity. Urenco were initially attracted to KPN International for three reasons:

- Network fit – where Urenco operates, KPN owns and operates a state-of-the art network
- Single point of commercial contact – KPN simplified contract management
- Local presence – KPN could provide responsive local support

These core characteristics remained relevant and valued when the scope and network demands changed significantly, just one year later.

New horizons

On being awarded the IT outsourcing contract from Urenco in 2004, CSC examined their international business requirements and asked what needed to be achieved in IT and telecommunications to support the company strategy. Urenco itself wished to implement a global transformation program to align best-of-breed processes across all its plants, and CSC was eager to establish the technology and communications framework needed to support this ambition. The consistent adoption of Microsoft Exchange across the enterprise became the technology cornerstone of this program, and the company network needed to support its use from every location. This demanded higher bandwidth and greater flexibility.

With KPN International already achieving a high degree of customer satisfaction, CSC was keen to examine the demands of the transformation project with them. The CSC project director, explains: ‘We had to be able to radically increase performance across the network, typically doubling port speeds to 4 Mbit/s, and also making sure we had capacity in hand for ongoing development.’

Flexibility is essential

The Urenco project saw KPN International re-engineer the four locations already under their mandate and then extend the design to all other Urenco sites, including a major new enrichment facility in New Mexico, scheduled to come online in 2009.

KPN International proposed its IP-VPN service as the core framework. This would provide all Urenco locations with the desired connectivity, allowing them to communicate securely by plugging directly into the KPN International global MPLS backbone.

It was essential that the overall design would be able both to achieve consistent levels of global service and be adaptable to variations in local requirements.

Although Ethernet was the preferred means of last-mile connectivity, local variations in the Urenco IT architecture meant that this could not immediately be adopted at all locations. Because the KPN International IP-VPN supports multiple access technologies, it was possible to embrace such variations without compromising integrity or performance.

CSC and KPN International are working together to provide Urenco with a communications infrastructure which will evolve in line with their ambitious business development strategy. Peter Keisner, KPN Account Director, has a clear vision of the solution potential: ‘The immediate requirement was for us to transition Urenco to a secure, high-performance global network. This allows them to communicate effectively as a single entity in all their dayto-day business. The customer already appreciates the quality of this service implementation. The real benefits, however, will begin to emerge as Urenco take advantage of the potential we have built into their IP-VPN.’

The solution has been explicitly designed to allow additional bandwidth to be delivered at short notice, without the need for any additional engineering investment.

The edge routers at Unrenco’s premises, for example, were specified so that they can handle both the current VPN traffic levels and also the local access circuits at full capacity. This delivers a strong degree of future-proofing, allowing for rapid network upgrade with no hardware changes necessary.

This preparedness translates directly into business benefit for the client. If, for example, Urenco research teams around the world decide to use video conferencing technology for their meetings, CSC can simply request the necessary bandwidth to be made available.
The solution is ready to take full advantage of new converged communication functions such as VolP, promising increases in communications efficiency and improved cost control.

Innovative monitoring and management techniques will also be able to make a major contribution. The KPNCare performance reporting tool provides a shared dashboard, which all parties can use to analyze usage and anticipate demand during the initial three-year contract and beyond.

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