Background

ESP have been providing a household name in razor manufacture with their IT needs for a number of years. So when they announced the building of their new Advanced Technology Centre we were top of the list to install their new network infrastructure.

Solution

There were a number of considerations, such as connectivity to the other buildings on the site and a zero downtime condition for old and new buildings. So we worked with the building consultancy firm to produce a sizing document to go out to general tender. Having won the tender on a combination of site knowledge and competitive pricing we then produced a Strategic Systems Plan in association with the Intel Network Design Centre. The purpose of this document was to act as a blue print for the whole installation and to ensure that the maximum performance was available from the network while using the most appropriate ratio of state of the art networking hardware against price per port.
The physical layer of the network in the new building was designed around a flat per floor model with cable termination cabinets on each floor linked to each other with fibre optic cabling. In addition a fibre was run from the new building to the existing building to allow inter-building connectivity to the existing heterogeneous networks. In total 1100 category 5e switched network outlets were installed and every user was able to access the same network services whether in the new building or the old.

Mike Harling commented for ESP: “It was very important for the customer to minimise any disruption to their users. The difficulty was connecting the existing heterogeneous networks to the new building without creating bottlenecks in the system. By installing the right balance of industry leading switching hardware at appropriate positions this target was achieved, while also allowing the older areas of the network to be easily disconnected as they became redundant. With our help they were able to phase the moving of their users to their new offices without any loss in network services.”

To find out how you can benefit from the ESP experience call 0118 916 9300 now
or send an e-mail to sales@esp.co.uk

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