Cable&Wireless Provides Application Layer Network Management Using Ipanema

Cable&Wireless targets large international enterprises with virtual private networks and MPLS-based networks. It provides them with managed network services and as demand for performance of these networks increases, Cable&Wireless is responding with an application-centric managed network services offering using Ipanema Technologies’ Business Network Optimization System.

The Ipanema system provides Cable&Wireless customers with real-time visibility and control of their VPNs and allows them to dynamically manage, accelerate and prioritize traffic to meet their individual business needs.

“We guarantee performance of applications across the [wide area network] to give a predictable experience from the customer edge,” said Mike Bailey, country manager, United Kingdom, for Ipanema. “That’s quite important in a managed services world because service providers have to deliver on service level agreements.”

Ipanema designed its system to provide service providers and their customers visibility and reporting for layers 3 through 7 of the network. It guarantees performance of critical applications by dynamically allocating network resources on demand. It also performs WAN optimization and acceleration. “It is like a dynamic quality-of-service application,” Bailey said.

Malcolm Seagrave, global head of security and application services at Cable&Wireless, said Ipanema works closely with his company to adapt to the way it wants to use the technology.

“It’s a very economical approach to make sure we get visibility across network on-net and off-net,” Seagrave said. “Service providers in this IP world still talking quite a lot about traditional network language, but we are trying to change the conversation quite significantly and start talking about business drivers.”

Some of those drivers are around when and where to start rightsizing the network and assessing the impact of new network applications. “It’s like air traffic control. Networks are getting more congested and in real time we need to proactively and quickly transfer bandwidth to a customer and maximize that network’s performance. It is a different conversation,” Seagrave said.

He added that as CRM and ERP applications become more business-critical, the fight for bandwidth becomes greater and that, with Ipanema, Cable&Wireless will be able to help network managers meet the requirements of their end users by ensuring critical applications do not suffer due to network congestion and other issues.

Ipanema allows Cable&Wireless to shift from a network SLA model to an application SLA model, which it believes opens opportunities for a more high-value services centered on performance.

Cable & Wireless currently operates two standalone business units: Europe, Asia & US, and International. The first provides enterprise and carrier solutions to the largest users of telecoms services across the United Kingdom, United States, continental Europe and Asia, and wholesale broadband services in the United Kingdom. The International business unit operates integrated telecommunications companies in 33 countries offering mobile, broadband, domestic and international fixed line services to residential and business customers, with principal operations in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands.