Grincor`s networking outsourced

Durban-based Grinrod Unicorn Group (Grincor) has outsourced its wide area network (WAN) to OmniLink, SA`s first and largest quality-of-service Virtual Private Network (VPN).

The move, says Group IT Manager Cliff McCormick, solved two of the company`s most pressing needs: having upgrade the existing WAN following the sale of FastLane which had supported the Grincor enterprise network, and the looming Y2K deadline.

Grincor has 10 subsidiaries spread around the country. These have to communicate directly with each other rather than via a centralised head office.

"Going the VPN route was a business, rather than IT decision. It was based primarily on reducing IT costs and increasing network reliability and service levels," he explains.

"With Fast Lane no longer a member of the Group, upgrading our own network would have entailed enormous expense in hardware which could have to maintained and regularly upgraded.

"In addition, we would also have had to employ skilled personnel to install and maintain the network. With the chronic shortage of IT skills, we would have found it difficult to attract and retain people with the right qualifications," McCormick adds.

The Group was also planning to initiate a major upgrade of its internal IT applications as well as its networks which it wanted standardised on the Cisco platform. This latter service was to be provided by Dimension Data Networks (DDN).

Just how cost-effective outsourcing the Group WAN to OmniLink would be became apparent in a Net Present Value (NPV) analysis which evaluated the difference between Grincor installing and maintaining its new network itself; or taking the outsourcing route.

"While the results varied depending on the factors considered, the overall finding of the NPV was that going the VPN route was justified from a total cost of ownership (TCO) point of view," McCormick says.

According to Val Moodley, business development manager at OmniLink, the NPV also took into account the fact that to avoid network degradation during high traffic peaks, Grincor would have had to install redundant bandwidth.

"This need falls away with the installation of the VPN with its incremental bandwidth allocation which is sufficiently flexible to meet demand peaks and troughs," she explains.

"In addition, OmniLink would take over all Grincor`s Telkom communication and administration. Grincor would simply have to pay one consolidated amount to OmniLink which would provide a detailed breakdown of each branch`s usage, rather than have to cope with several Telkom accounts."

The ease with which subsidiaries and branches could be linked to - or removed from - the Grincor VPN was a major factor considered by Grincor as was the ease with which shipping companies abroad could access the Grincor network through a single Internet gateway.

"Grincor also felt it would benefit from OmniLink`s ability to 'segment` the VPN to accommodate different types of network traffic. For example, OmniLink can monitor network traffic and if it`s found that Internet traffic is impacting on the movement of other network communications, OmniLink will be able to sub-divide the VPN to give Grincor`s Internet traffic its own 'layer`,

"While Y2K was not the driving force behind the decision to utilise the OmniLink VPN, the fact that it is Y2K compliant contributed to Grincor`s decision," she adds.

The entire roll-out, from the first implementation planning session to the final cut-over of the last site took 12 weeks.

"This was largely due to effective project management, particularly as the VPN cut-over formed only part of a large scale IT upgrade by Grincor - from the WAN to the desktop. We had to ensure close co-operation between all our IT suppliers and the fact that OmniLInk and DDN are both from the same stable, helped enormously," McCormick concludes.