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The Royal & Sun Alliance is a world leading multinational insurance group that has been providing insurance and investment related solutions to its customers for nearly 300 years.
Committed to providing world class customer service, the Royal & SunAlliance recognises that it must maintain a state-of-the-art corporate IT infrastructure.
Situation
In 2001, the company became aware that its existing networks would be unable to meet the future needs of the organisation. As Steve Allen, Technical Specialist at Royal & SunAlliance, recalls, “It was increasingly difficult to find maintenance suppliers for our Token Ring network and the cost of ownership was escalating. As a result, the decision was made to migrate to a UTP based Ethernet technology.”
He continues, “This decision coincided with a consolidation of the Royal & SunAlliance business into sixteen core locations."
Solution
Royal & SunAlliance commissioned strategic partner BT to manage the migration to Ethernet. One of BT’s first actions was to issue a tender to preferred suppliers for a cabling solution. Of three shortlisted suppliers, Branch were selected for the innovation and cost effectiveness of their product.
Mr Allen emphasises the close working relationship that has developed between the two companies, “Although Branch work primarily
for BT, we have a very good direct working relationship with the company that has been built up over a number of years and a variety of projects.”
Work on the project started in April 2004 at Horsham and Oldham. These offer the greatest challenge being the largest Royal & SunAlliance sites in the UK requiring some 8,000 data outlets.
Mr Allen is confident that the unique Branch method will meet the challenge, as he explains, “Unlike traditional cabling companies, Branch prepares the cable loom off-site. Their first step is to survey the site, which involves measuring cable routes, taking photographs of cable runs and potential obstacles and producing CAD based schematics for approval. Once we’ve signed off the drawings, Branch prepares the loom. They do this by manufacturing, pre-terminating and pre-looming the cables onto drums off-site.”
“With this solution, Branch avoids the need to dismantle and rebuild offi ces during installation. They are able to cable an entire floor in one weekend. They minimise, if not eliminate, any disruption to our business that cabling might otherwise cause.” Mr Allen (Royal & SunAlliance)
Another Branch innovation is in the design of the cable used. Where the supporting core of a sheathed bundle of cables would normally be solid, Branch uses a fibre optic tube instead. This provides Royal & SunAlliance the option of blowing fibre along this tube under the floor to every location at a later date, as demand for network capacity grows.
“The speed with which the final installation is performed and the provision for increasing capacity by blowing fibre through the existing infrastructure offers us a signifi cant advantage over other suppliers.”
As Mr Allen (Royal & SunAlliance) confirms, Branch offers a unique solution.
Benefits
> Flexible infrastructure
The new infrastructure Branch has designed gives the Royal & SunAlliance the flexibility required to manage its entire office communications needs, both voice and data, simplifying the management of access as and when users move location.
Mr Allen confirms the advantage, “Branch provides a flexible solution that allows us to route all comms over the same cabling infrastructure. As part of this project we are migrating all of our voice communications to the new cabling. This is a significant advantage given the annual 60% churn of staff within Horsham and the effort and cost previously associated with reallocating their voice and data communications.”
> Future proofed solution
The Royal & SunAlliance is confident that the new infrastructure will continue to meet their needs for many years to come. In particular, the capacity to install blown fibre without any disruption to the floors is a significant advantage.
“The innovative cable design Branch has created provides us with a solution that is good for life and
future proofed to our standards for up to ten years. It protects our business”, says Mr Allen.
> Avoidance of disruption to users
The traditional cabling project usually involves dismantling and rebuilding offices. It is time consuming and disruptive. As Mr Allen confirms, Branch avoids this disturbance, “The advantage to us is that we don’t have to move staff out to another location. Branch can cable our offices with all the desks and everyone’s personal items in situ. To date we haven’t had a single complaint from a user.
In fact users often don’t even realise that their office has been re-cabled.”
By ensuring that both the original Token Ring and new Ethernet infrastructures can run alongside each other, the Branch solution also avoids the temporary but significant server access problems our users experienced during previous migrations. “At no time do users have to access servers that remain on the other media,” Mr Allen explains,
“the Branch method allowed us to execute a big bang migration of 800 users in one weekend and
the change was invisible to them.”
> Significant cost saving
By constructing the cable loom off-site, speeding installation and removing the need to clear offices, the Branch solution provides the Royal & SunAlliance with significant cost savings.
Mr Allen explains, “The costs involved in clearing an office for an installation are very high indeed. Simply moving PCs off desks and returning them later costs about £100 per machine. In Horsham alone there are between 1400 and 1500 users, that’s a cost of nearly £150k for PC removal alone. Even taking into account the higher expense of out of hours installations, Branch delivers substantial cost savings".
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