American Express, a diversified worldwide travel, financial services and network services company, has selected Dimension Data for a bandwidth optimisation solution, enabling it to prioritise business-critical traffic across its existing wide area network (WAN).
Dimension Data`s bandwidth optimisation solution consolidates best-of-breed caching, quality of service, compression and network monitoring/compression technologies, into a single solution that looks at bandwidth usage in its entirety and makes recommendations on how best to optimise bandwidth.
Prior to the upgrade, American Express deployed Expand Networks` Accelerator 2700 units at four sites across SA. Any downtime on the units, which had no maintenance contracts or software licence cover, would result in insufficient WAN bandwidth to carry data, resulting in extreme network congestion that would necessitate manual operations between the branches.
"In addition to our concerns regarding downtime, we also experienced increased traffic from our Cape Town branch, which intensified our requirement for guaranteed quality of service and the prioritisation of business-related traffic," says Jose Rodrigues, IT manager, American Express.
The technology migration plan involved removing legacy equipment and replacing it with the latest accelerator product, the Expand 4820, which is covered by a maintenance and support agreement. The Expand system provides American Express with bandwidth expansion capabilities, various features that improve the response time of applications as well as tools that allow enterprises to align network resources with business priorities. In addition, the upgrade will ensure quality of service across the American Express WAN and allow for mission-critical Citrix traffic to be prioritised.
"We are already seeing improved operational performance since the completion of the implementation. Dimension Data`s bandwidth optimisation solution enabled us to utilise our existing infrastructure, negating the need for a costly network upgrade to cope with increased business and user demands," adds Rodrigues. Users have also acknowledged visible improvements in terms of system performance and functioning.
"The solution, which meets both the technical and business requirements of American Express, will ensure it makes the most efficient use of its available bandwidth - an expensive resource - and ensure priority is given to mission-critical traffic. The benefits of bandwidth optimisation solutions are immediate, and customers typically achieve return on investment within six to nine months," says Jeff Jack, manager: technology and operations, network solutions, Dimension Data.
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