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Background
DeltaRail is a specialist software and technology provider to the rail industry, supporting customers in disciplines ranging from signalling control, through to train operations, advanced condition monitoring, vehicle dynamics, structures, and track infrastructure.
Not least because of what DeltaRail does — “Our innovative cost-effective solutions answer the challenge of maximising availability, reliability and capacity on operations, on track and train” — it has tough criteria for the selection and retention of its own technology providers.
The company operates from multiple locations, and has been dependent on networking arrangements since its sale from its previous owners in 2006. At the time of establishment as a standalone company, DeltaRail needed connectivity urgently between various new United Kingdom offices. IT manager Gavin Harris explains: “What you would almost call a metropolitan area network had to be set up to link the company together around the various locations.”
Towards improved network architecture
Cut to three years later - dedicated bandwidth and predictably high levels of service over DeltaRail’s leased lines, remain constant requirements. However, their infrastructure needs have been evolving at the same time. The business has been flourishing. It has increased — and is continuing to increase — its emphasis on software development as the means of delivering benefit to engineering. As IT Director John Byrne comments, the time had come to re-align aspects of the wide area network with business and IT:
“We wanted, not ultimate resilience, but greater resilience than we had from the hastily set up network”, he explains. “And we wanted to dovetail that into our relationship with the managed service provision of many of our business applications.”
Gavin Harris continues: “Because of the geographical spread of the company — we’re strewn all over the place — connectivity is very important. If the link to our storage area network went down, that means the business cannot get to its business files.”
DeltaRail also wanted to simplify its network architecture, if possible, with a view to better managing the network traffic and creating separated internal virtual networks.
Team effort
Ethernet lines provided by Iconnyx underpin the company’s connectivity, and Iconnyx also securely hosts some of its systems. Iconnyx rose to DeltaRail’s “be a partner” challenge, and worked co-operatively to provide and examine options and come up with a plan. “We knew what we wanted to achieve, and we had some ideas,” John Byrne says. “Iconnyx were very good from a technical aspect in advising what was possible, and also in dealing with the other parties. They were very good at identifying providers most likely to deliver to timescale — and I have to say they were wholly accurate!
“In terms of reports and presentations delivered, how things were mapped out, and discussions about the pros and cons of various options, it was a team effort.” He appreciates the honest relationship between the two companies: “I’m very open with them about what I’m thinking, and ideas, and where those ideas fit, what I have budget for and what I don’t. So we have a very candid relationship, and that’s the way to do it — it has served us very well.”
A more resilient network
The implementation of three new 100Mb resilient links was delivered on schedule. “The process of the project went very, very well,” says Gavin Harris. “Iconnyx implemented a weekly conference call, where we discussed any issues in the project’s progress, and that methodology meant that everybody was up to speed with what was happening. There were good strong lines of communication between ourselves and Iconnyx and our other partners.”
For DeltaRail this is very important: “We’ve got a very small IT team here — only five of us to look after around four hundred users spread around all over the place in Derby, London and Barnsley. So when you’re looking for a contractor or a supplier, you want a supplier who will do what they say they are going to do. Also, you want a company who understands your requirements and translates them into solution, and who doesn’t require constant hand-holding, feedback and direction!”
The benefits we looked for have been fully realised. John Byrne says: “The bottom line is we’ve increased our reliance on our network and lowered the risks to it.” Greater resilience has been added with the additional lines and some re-routing to give additional network security. This includes links to hosted applications, plus a failover facility in case of any point breaking. “It’s now extremely unlikely that anything could take down the entire network.”
Likening the new set-up to “belt, braces and another belt!”, John Byrne adds: “We have done that with relatively modest investment. At the same time we have taken the opportunity to simplify our environment.” The simplification made possible another step towards reducing risk of system non-availability: DeltaRail, advised by Iconnyx, was able to take the new wide area network and create three virtual networks (VLAN’s). This enabled the IT department to better manage the users, and to separate different types of traffic.
All of this adds up to reduced business risk, and in John Byrne’s view, has been highly worthwhile: “Taking what we had — which was a network that was delivered urgently — and then making that into something we could really build on, has been a great success.”
Ongoing relationship
The relationship between DeltaRail and Iconnyx is ongoing, and both John Byrne and Gavin Harris have positive views of it. Since joining DeltaRail early in 2009 Gavin Harris has found Iconnyx “very accessible, easy to get hold of - nothing’s ever too much trouble”. He says: “You speak to the people doing the work. They know what they’re doing, and they keep you informed and involved. I would definitely recommend them to others wanting the kind of services we’re getting”.
Taking away the pain
Gavin Harris says of Iconnyx: “What they offer us is very important, because of the way our company is structured - they offer a very reliable service. When it comes to a project like this, they take away all the pain that we could have.
“We can go to Iconnyx and say we want to set out a link between these two points, can you go away and sort that out for us — and it takes away all the hassle of having to speak to telecoms suppliers and the nightmare that ensues thereafter when you have to deal with those sorts of companies. Iconnyx do all that for us, project manage it, push things along, and get things in at the times that we need them”.
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