Case study

What you turn on a tap, you naturally expect water to come out. Every single time. And that’s the same kind of expectation this water utility company had for its own IT network. Now, with the help of our Cisco ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure) they have consistency, scalability and security too. Successful outcomes include:

scaling to meet demand

The CISCO ACI has freed up both time and budget. For example, managing both virtual and physical environments is now much easier. Plus, deployments are standardised and many of the day-to-day IT tasks automated. Importantly, our own 24x7 Cisco total support package gives their IT team an extra level of confidence. To add an further level of security, we designed a skills test. Importantly, this makes sure no one can go near the network without having the right expertise.

Compared to the existing network the new ACI “spine and leaf” topology offered greater security, flexibility and visibility. Using Gartner-recommended Fixed Form Factor (FFF) hardware building blocks and software, it offers the ultimate in network flexibility.

nETWORK MANAGER †

getting on with the good stuff

The Cisco ACI revolutionised their approach to networking. Now, they can deploy “any workload, anywhere” across physical and virtual environments. Additionally they have peace of mind that there’s consistent policy and security across the board. For example, they can split business streams into various units, provide common shared services, then control the access to each. This is used for security, backup, internet and core business applications. With this segmented approach, it’s much easier and faster to manage than previously.

Maintaining network health is much easier too; the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) automatically generates a Health Score. This also easily integrates with industry-leading orchestration, security, Layer 4 through 7 services, and management tools.

I estimate we’ve been able to do 50% more, with the same headcount. This means we can roll out new systems and customer enhancements faster than ever before.

Network manager †

With our help and the CISCO ACI network, they have peace of mind over 3.5 M customer records are safe and systems will keep running to deliver over 900 million litres of water to customers every day.

solution - Cisco aci

• Security
• Ongoing Support

† The customer reference was provided prior to CANCOM in the UK&I becoming Telefónica Tech in the UK&I and the names have been changed for ease of reference.