MENLO PARK, Calif., June 23, 1992 -- BP Exploration (BPX), the organization within British Petroleum charged with finding and producing crude oil and gas worldwide, is now in the process of installing approximately 100 Cisco Systems routers on three continents to create a new corporate communications backbone internetwork. BPX expects the improved Cisco-based data communications internet to have a major positive impact on the company's plans to reduce its annual investment in information technology (IT) spending.
Using Cisco routers, BPX has overcome the problem of trying to link many different types of networks and protocols, thus improving the efficiency of the company's data communications capabilities worldwide. The investment in Cisco routers has created a single internet that simultaneously handles seven different protocols, including DECnet,AppleTalk, Novell IPX, TCP/IP,and XNS. Today the network covers most of the world, including the U.S., United Kingdom, Norway, and South America. In the future the Far East, Indonesia, and Moscow will be added to the corporate Cisco backbone.
"The main reason BPX chose Cisco products was that no other networking vendor has the experience or technical capability to set up 100-plus router networks," said Edgar Dodds, BPX's senior communications engineer. "In short, no other vendor has the experience to build and support networks of the complexity, size, and geographical scope we needed.
"Now we can pass data to dispersed sites around the world irrespective of the type of computer being used. Cisco router technology automatically and transparently transmits data among these sites. End users need never know how the data arrives at different destinations, or any of the technical complexity of shifting information from one office to the other side of the world."
To construct their global internet, BPX is installing the full range of Cisco multiprotocol routers, including the company's high-end FDDI-capable AGS+ and access point two-port IGS models.
"Toward the end of the 1980s, our data communications network was incredibly complex and difficult to use," said Dodds. "It was a patchwork of different protocols linked by up to 20 network bridges. Sending data around the world was increasingly problematical, and no one person was responsible for it.
"Consequently, we needed a network that supported, rather than hindered, our business. We chose to use Cisco routers because of the company's proven track record and product reputation. They worked with us to create a worldwide internetworking solution. It has dramatically improved our global data communications and has increased the flexibility of our communications operations, opening the door to new network capabilities, such as FDDI and ISDN in the future."
Cisco Systems, Inc., is the leading worldwide supplier of high-performance, multimedia and multiprotocol internetworking products, including routers, bridges, communication servers and network management software. Cisco technology can be used to build enterprise-wide networks linking an unlimited number of geographically dispersed LANs. Cisco is publicly traded over-the- counter under the NASDAQ symbol CSCO. In the UK, Cisco Systemsis located in High Wycombe.
Posted: Jul 2 17:30:28 1992
