Dublin-based systems integrator and networking firm Lan Communications has secured a €2.2m contract with Vodafone to expand the company’s local and wide area networks as well as to provide wireless LAN (local area network) connectivity to the mobile operator’s 1,500 employees.
The deal will also see Lan Communications manage the service from its operations centre in Ballymount, Dublin.
Pat Moynihan, IT director at Vodafone Ireland, said that over half of Vodafone’s staff is involved in customer care and it is critical that a solid and reliable communications platform is in place to ensure a smooth running of Vodafone Ireland. “Having consolidated local operations to a greenfield site in Sandyford, we wanted to ensure that employees had the latest technology at their disposal to service our growing customer base of over 1.7 million subscribers.
According to Sean McNamee, managing director of Lan Communications, the contract will incorporate a number of key elements, which will require high expertise in network design, installation and management. “Vodafone operates in an environment that is driven by intense competition and technological innovation. We created an architecture to reflect this and incorporated speed, reliability and full resiliency into the primary design criteria.
At the network core, Lan Communications installed two backbone Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches, which will provide 1Gbps Ethernet speeds and high availability. These are connected via gigabit uplinks to 19 distributed wiring closets, each housing a Catalyst 4006 chassis switch. “Users will enjoy 10/100 switched speeds to the desktop. Network bottlenecks have been eliminated and application response times have improved significantly as a result.
Five Cisco 7600 switches/routers have also been deployed throughout the network, linking Vodafone’s headquarters with locations in Clonskeagh, Dundalk, Galway and Cork, with a centralised data centre in Clonshaugh, Co Dublin.
By John Kennedy
