Magnox: WAN Solution Boosts Network Speeds, Reduces Costs
Client: Magnox North Limited
Challenge: Deploy a cost-effective, efficient and agile IT infrastructure and reduce long-term replacement and support costs, while improving business productivity.
Solution: Implement the innovative WAN acceleration solution, Cisco Wide Area Application Services; centralize and consolidate IT services.
Results: Faster connectivity, lower support costs, long-term cost-efficiencies and improved access to bandwidth-hungry resources over the WAN.
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Magnox North Limited is a Site Licence Company (SLC) that manages five of the UK’s civil nuclear sites under contract from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Magnox North’s site operations include continuing electricity generation at two of its power station sites, and defuelling and decommissioning at the other three. Magnox sought to implement a cost-effective, efficient and agile IT infrastructure at all SLCs and reduce long-term replacement and support costs, while improving business productivity by enabling the deployment of new technologies, such as videoconferencing.
A faster, wider network
For CSC, a key aspect of the infrastructure centralization and consolidation project involved finding a WAN acceleration solution that would maintain connectivity service levels for all users. Following an investigation of solutions, CSC selected Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) as its recommended option. As this was one of the earliest implementations of Cisco WAAS in the UK, it required close co-operation and joint teamworking between CSC, Magnox North and Cisco personnel. This was vital for overcoming technical challenges and ensuring project success. The technology was piloted at one of Magnox North sites.
Centralise and consolidate
Implementing WAN acceleration technology has enabled Magnox North to centralise and consolidate servers for cost reductions over the long term, while maintaining and improving connectivity service levels for all users. The long-term cost reductions stem from:
- Lower support costs – supporting the servers in a single CSC data centre is more cost efficient than supporting them at four Magnox North locations;
- Reduced hardware estate – for example, a single server now supports Magnox North’s Lotus Notes application, replacing individual servers at each site and generating annual savings of £80,000;
- Improved server utilisation through investment in more up-to-date hardware.
Feedback from users has been very positive. On average, application access times are down by 80%, going from five minutes to one minute and, in some cases, to just one second. In addition, home workers are seeing the same percentage reductions in remote access login times. All users have faster access to company-wide shared applications, such as SAP, that are hosted at the CSC data centre. Internet access times are quicker too, as access to the Internet for all users on the Magnox North WAN is handled out of the CSC data centre.