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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 29, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 39
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Systems/Enterprise:
SWEDEN-BASED GCE TO RUN ENTIRE
OPERATIONS FROM CZECH SERVER
Sprint announced that it has installed a fully managed IP VPN (Internet
Protocol Virtual Private Network) for The GCE Group, a multinational company
leading in the field of gas control equipment. The four-year, $3 million-
contract followed a competitive bid.
Although GCE's headquarters are in Malmo, Sweden, the Sprint-managed IP VPN
has created a secure WAN (Wide Area Network) for GCE to run its business
operations remotely from its hub site in the Czech Republic. In addition, the
consolidation of network services across GCE's internal organizations on to a
single managed IP VPN is expected to deliver network efficiencies as well as
higher levels of speed and quality of service.
"Sprint has exceeded our expectations in the management and implementation
of
our global IP VPN, which is tantamount to the excellent support that we have
received from the global service provider," said Jan Zetterberg, vice
president of Group Supply for GCE. "Now we have a shared and secure
communications infrastructure that helps us to control our IT&T (Information
Technology and Telecoms) costs, streamline reporting, and share applications
and corporate information. In addition, it is so secure that we can run our
entire business operations across it."
Sprint is building the IP VPN across Western, Eastern Europe and the United
States, with firewall and remote access services. GCE's server in the Czech
Republic hosts all its business-critical systems, such as its ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning), with all related functions for the group.
"GCE has shown its belief in us by signing a four-year contract, a rarity
in
today's market and a commendation of the Sprint global strategy. We have
proven to GCE that we are able to meet its global requirements by building a
stable and reliable global WAN environment that provides class of service for
its mission-critical traffic," said Claus Nikolajsen, Sprint country manager
for the Nordics and Baltics.
GCE develops and manufactures all types of equipment for pressure and flow
control of high-pressure gases and has a considerable worldwide export market.
Previously, GCE had a de-centralized approach to its communications
infrastructure without WAN capabilities, largely due to a series of mergers
and acquisitions by the company that resulted in a complex and costly
patchwork of networks.
The IP VPN connects GCE's local sales and supply companies across Benelux,
the
Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Spain,
Sweden, the UK and the United States, as well as its manufacturing units in
Czech Republic, France and Germany. GCE will experience the same high level of
service and reliability across its IP VPN because of the globally homogenous
characteristic of the Sprint IP network, and globally consistent SLAs (Service
Level Agreements).
Sprint provides class of service and traffic prioritization across all of
GCE's IP VPN, including the prioritization of business-critical traffic at the
local access level. This is particularly important since local access
environments vary from country-to-country around the world, both in terms of
price, technology and availability of bandwidth.
Sprint provides globally consistent IP and data WAN solutions to
enterprises
and service providers. The Sprint homogenous global IP network ensures Sprint
can provide the same global SLAs with the same suite of products from each
location. This uniformity of service is enhanced by Sprint's global operations
centers, based in Atlanta and Reston, Va., which enable Sprint to keep a
global, end-to-end view of all its customers' network needs. And because
Sprint global network is based on IP, it can interconnect with any networks
and technologies including DSL, WiFi, 3G, GPRS, MPLS, Frame Relay and ATM.
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