Henkel optimises European networks

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Branded article manufacturer Henkel is using a new application traffic management system to control its wide area network (WAN) in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The German maker of household and DIY brands including Persil, Loctite and No More Nails migrated from an old frame relay WAN in Europe to a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network in 2006 and required guaranteed data compression and transparency throughout the EMEA region, comprising some 255 sites.

To optimise data compression, traffic control and prioritisation in the migration, a management system was needed to control the network and offer Quality of Service (QoS) reporting with better granularity for monitoring application bandwidth.

The company has chosen to deploy an application traffic management system provided by Ipanema Technologies to offer application centric, dynamic optimisation of network capacities and which is operated by information and communications technology (ICT) provider T-Systems.

Besides protection of individual user sessions, Henkel now benefits from a detailed view of data traffic, enabling precise bandwidth planning and checking of service level agreements (SLAs).

A further benefit is that the branded article manufacturer can fine tune the system in-house in the areas of reporting and prioritising critical applications like SAP, Lotus Notes or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) to run just as smoothly at the branches as at head office, optimally adjusting it to specific requirements.

The optimisation capability not only meets the requirements set, but also improves the allocation of applications to the individual service classes thanks to dynamic, application-centric bandwidth optimisation within the MPLS network, according to Henkel's systems engineer Steffen Gelessus.

"The use of the Ipanema system is a genuine quantum leap for us," said Gelessus. "With its finely calibrated monitoring and reporting functions, we obtain a more detailed overview of network traffic and can thus plan our capacities precisely and optimise the network."

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