Sify wires up Whirlpool for International MPLS Services
Background
Whirlpool of India Limited (WOIL) was planning to shift its ERP and other application servers to their HQ at Michigan, US, from their present position at Delhi. Their existing set up was made up of connecting all WOIL locations (around 40 of them nationally) to Sify, locally (using different mediums of dedicated last mile connectivity, viz 2 Mbps LL, 64 Kbps LL, BB, RF - each with ISDN back ups) and accessing their Head Office (HO) in New Delhi, centrally. The HO was connected to SIFY NOC on 2 Mbps LL (primary) and BB (Secondary). Besides this, 40 PSTN dial up users also accessed their HO. Applications running at the HO included SAP, Mail main server and a couple of small applications. The HO also had 256 Kbps Internet access and their Pondicherry factory had 128 Kbps Internet Access. Both these locations used a common last mile for Internet as well VPN.
The key requirements were
- High availability for WOIL servers at USA. Primarily for accessing their SAP server (hosted in HQ, from their India Locations), Mail Server application, Other Intranet applications and proposed VOIP or Video conferencing.
- Redundancy on Sify's proposed Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific gateways in the case of a STM-1 failure on either of the gateway links.
- Internet access from their Delhi and Pondicherry offices in India.
Key concern areas for WOIL
- High uptime commitments in the network.
- Highly flexible and scalable network solution
- Network Management and monitoring
- End to end security
- Reduced latency on the network
Solution
International MPLS Bandwidth requirements were proposed at 3.0 Mbps. Currently WOIL's HO in Delhi is establishing IP Sec tunnel with their US office using Sify's International bandwidth routed through the primary path of Trans Atlantic fiber gateway in Mumbai (Hot back-up being Trans-Pacific). The proposed solution is an overlay network for WOIL on Sify's IP backbone. Sify's network is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) enabled and its partner-Beyond the Network Access (BtNA), a premium International service provider would be providing MPLS WAN services to WOIL in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Sify proposed the Layer 3 MPLS enabled VPN from WOIL co-located and aggregated point in Mumbai to their International office in Michigan. The key benefit offered by MPLS WAN is that it imparts a strong security feature to the WOIL network. MPLS VPNs use a technique called route distinguishers to provide traffic separation between VPNs of different customers. These are assigned automatically when the VPN is provisioned, and are unique for a given customer.
Network Schematics for WOIL MPLS WAN Connectivity
The critical differentiators of the solution offered by Sify
Sify's strong value proposition for providing International MPLS connectivity services played a critical role in WOIL adopting its network. Sify's critical differentiators was
- A strong and robust domestic backbone in India for providing MPLS Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services for enterprises with full redundancies built at all levels which included carrier diversity on the backbone as well as on the last mile
- Redundant fiber bandwidth gateways for providing high availability MPLS VPNs to any international destinations
- Co-located Points of Presence in Hong Kong, London, Nework, and Los Angeles with peering with premier service providers in these locations
- Millions of man-hours of experience in building business critical networks for corporates in India ¥ Wide acceptance
Sify's services are used by international service providers such as Cable & Wireless, MCI and ETT as their preferred partners in India.
And most importantly the key benefit offered by the Sify MPLS WAN architecture was that it imparted a strong security feature for the WOIL International network, besides providing WOIL with a most cost effective solution.
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