ProCurve Networking by HP assists V&A Waterfront to meet 2010 demands

Internationally acclaimed tourist destination, the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, has selected ProCurve Networking by HP to implement new technology across its entire distributed campus.

The technology upgrade was based on the V&A Waterfront's view to the future - most notably with the 2010 Soccer World Cup on the horizon - with major requirements from its technology partner being stability, centralised management as well as monitoring capabilities.

With a technology environment consisting of disparate technologies from multiple vendors, the V&A Waterfront required a solution to overcome the challenges it faced within this environment. Security was also a major requirement to lock down the infrastructure, whilst an additional requirement was the need to move towards having voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) available across the campus.

The V&A Waterfront deployed HP's ProCurve 5400zl series at the core of the network and 3500yl series at the edge, with overall management by ProCurve Manager Plus.

"The client required stability and a centralised management platform, and these two factors are core parts of ProCurve's solution offering," said Lorna Hardie, business unit manager for the ProCurve Networking Business in South Africa.

"With ProCurve, the network can be managed from a single console with management and monitoring capabilities, while the selected products' reliability and feature set has made it possible to easily integrate VoIP, which was one of the key requirements."

She added that ProCurve Networking by HP was awarded the contract based on a number of factors. It offered an aggressive price/performance ratio in comparison to the other vendors, while the offering from its management suite of products met the V&A Waterfront's requirements. ProCurve was furthermore recommended for the implementation by several of the V&A's infrastructure partners, who had already tested a variety of brands beforehand.

Trek to the summit

00Days

:

00Hrs

:

00Min

:

00Sec

According to Chris Lazari, IT Operations consultant at the V&A Waterfront, the most important element that ProCurve offered was its security, as it allowed the V&A to lock down devices as needed, while also providing it with a trusted brand name that it knew would be fully supported.

"It is also important that the network can be managed remotely by us from our desks, which means we do not waste time going to the origin point of a problem, thereby meaning we are able to see more calls through to completion in a normal day's work," he added.

"The implementation itself took only a couple of days, but when one takes into account the work that took place beforehand in respect of planning, designing and checking, the total implementation time was approximately two months."

Hardie added that as this expansion takes place, so the ProCurve network can grow with it, as the company has been able to create a template for switches to be added, making it "almost as simple as plug-and-play" to add additional devices and switches.

"The V&A Waterfront itself is currently undergoing a very large expansion plan, with the overall aim being to develop the infrastructure by approximately a further 40% by 2010."

Lazari concurred: "The beauty of this new network is that the V&A can do so much more with it, as it now provides them a foundation that gives them the freedom to roll out new technologies to assist their customers in their businesses, which is something they couldn't do before."