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While expanding globally through a series of acquisitions, Measurement Specialties
faced "seriously degrading network performance" according to Bob Andreini,
Global Director of IS/IT. Internal and external communications and business critical
applications were affected, and the business suffered as a result.
Measurement Specialties had augmented its original Point-to-Point network with a mix
of IP VPN and additional Point-to-Point connections as new locations came on board,
so all connections were routed through the company's headquarters in Hampton,
VA. As the company grew, the network became fragmented and could not support
heavy data transfer and worldwide connectivity, causing such poor performance that
downtime was measured in days per quarter and seriously impacted the business.
When the network went down, sites around the world lost the ability to process and ship
orders and match production to inventory plans. In addition, Measurement Specialties
sometimes lost all two-way communication for stretches as long as 24 hours, which
hampered customer service and challenged collaboration between globally dispersed
engineering and product development groups.
The situation also put a strain on Andreini and his lean team of 35 staff members, only
a few of whom are network engineers. Measurement Specialties frequently had to
mediate disputes between the old provider and its partners in other countries before
one carrier would fix a network issue, and a number of the staff had to spend extra
time learning to configure routers to fill a gap in the provider's services.
Among Measurement Specialties' needs for a better network were:
- Replace degrading hub-and-spoke network with scalable, global network with best-path routing
- Fully managed solution to allow internal IT staff to focus on strategic business initiatives
- Flexible network architecture to ensure performance
- Reduce network downtime with resilient multi-carrier network
- 24x7 committed customer support and expert management
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