Cisco Helping Upgrade Business Communications

June 20, 2005

by Charles Waltner, News@Cisco

Cisco Systems' customers are doing everything they can to take advantage of the promise of converged communications. Much of their efforts involve upgrading network connections and installing Cisco's advanced routers and switches. With the Cisco networks in place, organizations are finding they can do much more for less.

Companies with global operations, such as Remy International, are discovering Cisco's networks are particularly helpful for shrinking the distance between their operations. Remy International, headquartered in Anderson, Ind., supplies auto parts for major automotive manufacturers and retailers.

The company has grown through the acquisition of several smaller businesses scattered around the globe. Some of these operations had only "home office" quality networks, says Mark Nelson, a senior network architect for Remy International. The company is now undertaking a wide-sweeping network upgrade, including building a private backbone with AT&T coupled with deployment of new Cisco routers at its various sites. This way all the organization's sites will have the capability for converged, real-time communications and advanced remote management for quality-of-service, troubleshooting and other vital tasks.

For Remy, better communications means more productivity. Thanks to the upgrades, the company now has real-time capabilities for its CAD design engineers. This allows the program licensing to be shared at design centers in Anderson, Korea and Poland, lowering the total cost of ownership. A project is also underway to replicate the CAD database so that engineers at all locations can access product designs simultaneously. Before the network upgrade, the engineers had to transfer design information on Zip disks or tape backup via second-day delivery. Nelson noted that production efficiency improvements are crucial for Remy since auto components typically have very thin margins.

"Every fraction counts," Nelson says.

The company is also looking to the network upgrade to significantly boost the time it takes to process its month-end financial reports. Now they take two weeks, as the various operations around the globe must mail in their reports. With the network in place, Remy aims to make that three days.

Though such network upgrades are no small budget matter, Nelson says the new capabilities of the Cisco network is also helping pay for the upgrade since the new network can also run voice-over-IP telephony services. Remy International's VOIP link to its facilities in Mexico, for example, is saving the company over $2,800 a month, Nelson says.

Astar Air Cargo is another company turning to Cisco networking technologies to tie together its global operations. Astar, a Miami, Fla., company that operates 40 aircraft for overnight cargo delivery for DHL, as well as supporting U.S. military operations through charter airlifts, is moving from a frame relay to a Cisco Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network with new Cisco Integrated Services Routers for its 40 sites.

The benefits of the new network are many for Astar, says Todd Sims, senior network engineer for the company. Since the upgraded communications infrastructure provides so many more management and operational capabilities--from monitoring, reliability, throughput, and redundancy—it is now viable for Astar to bring its outsourced applications in-house.

"Because of the advances in our Cisco network, we can now do so many things internally that there's a confidence that even with a small staff we can take care of these things," Sims says.

Astar plans to make the most of its new, more manageable network, using it to install VOIP and videoconferencing applications to tie its global operations together. He says such capabilities as quality-of-service are now far easier with the new Cisco network.

Astar is also looking to new Cisco technologies to bring comprehensive security to its wide-reaching network. The company plans to bring online both Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) technologies and Cisco Security Agents to prevent the infiltration of viruses and worms into the Astar network. Knowing that such advanced security is in place will help Sims breath a little easier.

"Connecting all the dots for security is challenging," Sims says. "But being able to control and quarantine computers at remote sites with NAC is very exciting."

Adventist Health System is also looking to Cisco's MPLS technology to boost the capabilities of its network. Adventist Health, with 38 hospitals in 10 states and 44,000 employees, plans to expand voice capabilities into its data network over the next year.

"MPLS will allow us to do things we weren't able to do before, such handing off non-business traffic to increase the amount of bandwidth available for applications such as voice," says Charles Riley, a network engineer for Adventist.

The organization is also continuing its exploration of wireless, already a big component of its network but one that still holds potential for getting crucial information to the right people at the right time, Riley says.

But regardless of the application, networking for Adventist begins and ends with reliability.

"Since we are a health care provider, it is critical that our network be as reliable as it can be," Riley says. "The network has to be built to support the demands placed upon it, as well as weather any storms, such as viruses or attacks, whatever form they take…spam, malware, etc."

The widespread adoption of IP networking technology has even reached the open seas. The United States Navy is now using IP networks to run the steering and other systems for their ships, helping centralize ship controls and reduce manual tasks that required relaying orders by voice. The days of barking out "two-thirds ahead" are over.

Chris Strater, a test engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock division in Philadelphia, Penn., says the move to IP networks is part of the Navy's efforts to reduce the use of proprietary technologies. More importantly, the IP networking brings all-new capabilities to the Navy, allowing the ships to take advantage of the automation possible with digital technology.

Strater says the Navy is particularly excited about the new automated navigation system that is underdevelopment. By taking advantage of digitized navigation maps, sailors can simply click on a chart and plot information for direction of travel as well as speed and other factors.

"Now we can just use a computer, a mouse and the digital mapping system to set the course, and the application simply feeds the information directly to the ship's steering system over the IP network," Strater says.

So whether by land or sea, Cisco IP technologies are proving the way to better communications.

Charles Waltner is a freelance journalist in Oakland, Calif.