10 December 2004
Leading Internet Services Provider Internet Solutions (IS) has experienced tremendous success over the past few years in delivering managed Internet and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to South Africa’s top corporates. As a result IS has retained the largest MPLS customer base in South Africa and currently constitutes the fastest growth service within IS.
Now IS has extended its VPN offering globally, meeting the needs of its customers who require connectivity to their offices worldwide. The primary driver was to establish communications with applications within a Quality of Service (QoS) network in a secure manner, including the running of multiple applications that demand enhanced Classes of Service and uptime guarantees. This driver has been identified by South African corporates as a means to effect secure connectivity between their local offices and their international offices / partners.
The reporting and management functionality is performed by IS and is made visible via the IS Customer Zone, an IS managed service. This means that, support calls are logged via IS ensuring that all configuration changes, fault reports and related issues are taken care of, through one interface , regardless of whether the service is delivered across the IS owned backbone or via one of IS’ International carrier partners.
For the customer, this is all good news. International VPN allows businesses to connect securely with guaranteed service levels thereby circumventing the risk of Internet based attacks and the “best effort” service that is often not sufficient for certain applications that may be latency dependent. Running the solution as a secure network also means reduced costs with regards to security and monitoring. Customers are also able to run separate applications, each in a guaranteed Class of Service and have this performance honored end-to-end (or from site to site) – irrespective of where the international site might be geographically located. These performance metrics are offered with a strict and meaningful Service Level Agreement (SLA).
For IS clients who are currently utilising the solution, a major benefit in opting for an outsourced VPN solution is the availability of the network, and a common interface (IS), whilst not having to manage various up-stream carriers. “The ability to achieve the availability metrics is made possible via the fully meshed, redundant network infrastructure underlying all IS VPN solutions. The ability to honor various Quality of Service schema’s from site to site is made possible by the highly sophisticated and internationally recognized AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) configuration of the IS MPLS network. Furthermore, this can and has only been achieved as a result of the vast technical resources and extensive experience employed by IS.” says Mark Hamburger, Manager of the VPN division.
In terms of uptime and adherence to Quality of Service metrics, measured by the ability of the end user to work optimally, IS offers SLAs from site to site incorporating the “last mile” and takes responsibility for resolving faults on the local access lines. IS’ track record speaks for itself; the company has managed to achieve an average mean time-to-repair of 1 hour 29 minutes in recent months as opposed to the 7 hour targets offered by other local Internet Service Providers.
IS has interconnected and extended its VPN footprint in both London and New York via the IS International Fibre Network. This fibre optic connectivity connects London, New York and the South African PoP’s in a redundant meshed configuration. The company has also established Interconnect agreements with leading global network providers such as Cable & Wireless and AT & T. These providers offer IS customers the ability to connect to a local PoP in their respective location while still maintaining a single point of contact for support, i.e. IS. Such remarkable global thinking is what keeps Internet Solutions at the forefront of its industry.
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