New, lower-cost VPN service for European corporates

British Telecom’s (BT) business services and solutions division, BT Ignite, last month announced the launch of its new international IP VPN (virtual private networking) solution, MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching), promising a new lower-cost service to European corporates across 47 countries, including the UK, Ireland, the Nordics, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Spain. The new service will be provided as a simple, managed solution enabling businesses to focus on their core competencies rather than becoming embroiled in network management-type tasks themselves, which means lower costs and less downtime of the network. As far as manufacturing companies are concerned, the new offering is ideal for linking geographically spread offices or sending information to a remote supplier for applications such as email, intranets and extranets. And according to BT Ignite, because the new technology is ‘connectionless’ only an access circuit is needed at each site rather than pre-configured links or permanent virtual circuits (PVCs). This increases the flexibility of the service as new sites can be added more quickly and easily, and the whole thing’s much more scaleable. “It gives companies a full suite of integrated IP VPN services delivering the best combination of performance, security and reach, and a clear migration path from their traditional networks,” explains BT Ignite’s CEO, Andy Green. “BT believes that IP is the power at the heart of e-business. Through convergence, we’re helping businesses to break down the boundaries between voice-to-voice and machine-to-machine communications, creating a competitive advantage through their infrastructure,” adds Green. But there’s more. The new service also supports differential Classes of Service (CoS). This means companies can differentiate between their applications, prioritising those that are mission-critical and time sensitive, such as supply chain alerts, design information, voice or video, over other non-time critical traffic. The argument here is that organisations can better control costs by converging their networks without over-provisioning bandwidth. And to strengthen its overall portfolio, BT Ignite has also just launched its new data storage service, BT Data Storage, combining its own network and security expertise with partner, EMC’s (through Dell) IT storage solutions. Green comments: “Three years from now, 75% of the storage being bought will be networked. Bringing storage into the network is part of the progressive revolution towards IP as the standard language of business communications.” Jim Rothnie, chief technology officer at EMC, explains the benefits to users: “There’s a fundamental economic argument for move to networked storage. You get improved utilisation of resources and the increased accessibility and reliability of networked storage can have a real impact on the bottom line.” The two could be right. According to a report entitled ‘The Storage Report’ by McKinsey & Co and Merrill Lynch back in June last year, networked storage will replace direct attached storage for medium and large enterprises, “Due to overwhelming economic and performance advantages.” The report also estimates that moving to networked storage will give users an average cost saving of £0.29 per megabyte over a three-year period (due to savings from installation, network hardware, software, back-up hardware and media, the storage subsystem itself and people).