NPS Group

NPS Selects Teneo and saves over £600K in bandwidth costs.

NPS has over 30 offices across the UK delivering a range of property services, predominately to public sector but also private sector clients. It specializes in architecture, building, surveying, asset management, estate planning, consultancy, project management and archaeology.

It has over 2,500 employees using over 115 applications from basic office suites to intranet and web based applications.

Professional applications include AutoCAD, 3D Studio Max, Sketchup, Hevacomp, CSC Structural, NBS and Catopro. Mapping applications include Autodesk Map, MapGuide and Google Earth. Microsoft Office Suite applications include Office, SQL and Email. Internet based applications include standard HTML web pages, .NET applications, Time Management and IT Management software.

The main types of traffic include RTP (IPT), streaming media, HTTP/S, SQL, active directory, CIFS (file transfers) and email.

The challenge

Optimize traffic and enable accelerated access to consolidated data.

In 2007 NPS was going through a period of rapid growth at a rate of 30% per annum with a turnover exceeding £60m. Shaun Morgan, Northern Data Centre Manager & Kevin Pawsey, Senior Network Analyst take up the story.

Our rapid growth meant we had to look at ways of providing all the services and numerous applications that were required, without the cost of installing additional servers. Every server incurs an overhead not just in terms of the servers themselves but the cost of additional hardware, software and IT manpower. said Shaun.

NPS needed to restructure and consolidate IT infrastructure. However, users were already experiencing slow application speeds and consolidating IT would exacerbate these problems. Without a solution in place, requests could result in congested networks, diminishing application performance, and frustrated users.

Increasing bandwidth was one option but it didn’t solve latency problems and was prohibitively expensive. The annual spend on WAN was around £220K and was set to increase as new offices were commissioned.

NPS researched the WAN optimization technologies available including Cisco WAAS, Bluecoat and Riverbed Steelhead appliances.

As we already use a lot of Cisco solutions we initially thought this might be the logical technology to go for but it just couldn’t deliver what we were looking for. Bluecoat was very expensive and again couldn’t do everything that Riverbed was capable of. noted Shaun.

Cisco was really expensive and Riverbed seemed like a much more impressive product. We therefore decided to trial Riverbed Steelhead appliances remarked Kevin.

NPS turned to Teneo who recommended a trial installed across the slowest VPN sites in Kendal. This would give an idea of the impact that the appliances could make to the organization as a whole.

Riverbed Steelhead appliances accelerate application performance typically by five to 50 times and in some cases up to 100 times over the WAN, and reduce WAN bandwidth utilization typically by 60% to 95%.

The results from the trial were immediately positive, clearly demonstrating the performance needed to move to a consolidated infrastructure. The dramatic improvement in performance enabled us to back up servers overnight. Users felt as if they were getting the performance of a local infrastructure.

A business case was put together showing two options available; option one was to increase bandwidth and WAN services to allow for the extra traffic. WAN costs for three new offices would run at approximately £60K and would require an additional £250K in increases to bandwidth. Option two was to create a data centre mentality enabled by the Steelheads optimized application performance and watch the budgets remain stable. With Steelheads in place three new offices would around £50K (including the purchase of the Steelheads).

With this option there would be no increase in WAN bandwidth, saving £210K. If the Steelheads optimize the network on average 10 or 11 times, multiplying the WAN pipe by a factor of 10 saves over £600K.

The solution

Teneo deploys Riverbed Steelhead.

Riverbed Steelhead appliances offered a practical cost effective solution enabling IT infrastructure to be consolidated. NPS now needed to choose the right reseller among the numerous companies providing Riverbed technology. NPS wanted a reseller that was a longstanding trusted partner of Riverbed that would be able to provide a quality support service.

“Teneo offered a good price although that wasn’t the reason
why we chose them. We chose Teneo because of their value add. Teneo offered the best services and support and there is a lot of integration between Teneo and Riverbed. Teneo had the skill set needed to become our reseller of choice.” said Shaun.

The benefits

Cost effective, efficient and scalable IT infrastructure.

“IT is simplified, more versatile with substantially improved business delivery of systems. The Steelheads optimize the network up to 35 times and on average 10 or 11 times. If you multiply the WAN pipe by a factor of 10 this gives approx £600K of savings as a conservative estimate. There is no way we could get a 100 Mbps pipe at these prices. The appliances not only get the job done but have been easy to quantify to directors using reporting from the Riverbed CMC unit.” noted Shaun.

“We use a lot of AutoCAD drawing files which were nightmarishly slow. Riverbed increased performance by 10-15 times.” added Kevin.

They now have a scalable IT infrastructure. Staff are equipped with workable IT enabling them to provide a quality service to customers.

“The Riverbed’s optimized traffic enabling consolidation of IT and saving over £600K in bandwidth costs during the install period. Teneo has provided excellent support services ensuring that NPS continue to gain maximum potential from their Steelheads.”

“The support services offered by Teneo, have been second to none. They have a friendly, helpful technical team who I have been able to ring up and do a ‘sanity check’ when faced with an issue. When we used Teneo to trouble shoot it was all hands to the decks.”