VPLS:- The solution provided by Exponential-e was constructed over Exponential-e’s Next Generation Network. We created a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) WAN with many of the features and functionalities of a LAN to connect the company’s regional offices.
Convergence:- What stands out about Exponential-e’s VPLS solution is that it enables the provision of multiple services such as Voice, video and data provision over the same access circuit, bringing true convergence of triple play onto the WAN. Ethernet Demarcation Devices were used at each site to ensure total physical separation of each service, maximising security.
Security:- VPLS is a feature of MPLS which allows the provision of Layer 2 VPNs. This advanced network technology gives the customer the flexibility to create multiple VLANs over their WAN - achieving the security and separation of services they would usually only expect to see on the LAN. By using Next Generation VPLS and MPLS technologies, Exponential-e was able to provide a secure and physically separate Layer 2 WAN services for this customer.
Scalability:- The Next Generation VPLS architecture of the solution means it is easily scalable. The customer can now add additional sites or services into their private network simply and easily via the single broadcast domain enabled by wide-area Ethernet, and there is no need for complex and costly re-configuration of Layer 3 VPNs. Therefore, as the company grows, their network can be easily adapted to meet their changing needs, ie. it is a future-proof solution.
Business Continuity:- To cater for the customer’s BC and DR needs, we created a co-location site in which a range of services were hosted, including high-speed, private Internet Access, Voice Telephony and Video Conferencing. Additionally, centralised firewalls guaranteed that the customer’s WAN traffic was kept separate and safe from the public Internet.
Centralised services:- Following on from this, since the customer ran centralised firewalls for BC/DR purposes, they needed to distribute the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) functionality of the firewalls to other sites. To achieve this, we provided a separate dedicated VPLS instance which enabled us to extend the DMZ vLANs to each site. This service was presented to the customer at the Layer 2 level and connected into the customer’s nominated switches.
Service-aware QoS:- It was also a key requirement for the customer that certain services had priority over others, so we installed service-aware Quality of Service (QoS). This enables higher priority traffic to take precedence over non-critical services. The service-aware feature identifies different traffic flows and automatically prioritises certain services according to the customer’s needs. The solution also included hierarchical QoS; this allowed bandwidth guarantees to be assigned to each set of service queues whilst at the same time assigning a hierarchy to enforce dynamic bandwidth allocation to any queue that required bursting functionality
High-availability:- The customer is dependant on 24/7 uptime of critical services. To cater for this, we put several layers of resilience and redundancy into the solution. This was achieved by using different fibre routes, different gateways and resilient hardware.
The customer was very happy with the solution provided, commenting that “Exponential-e delivered a truly bespoke network solution specifically tailored to meet all our business objectives and growth plans. Since going live Exponential-e’s service has been consistently excellent and well within the terms of our Service-Level-Agreement.”
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