The client
Smiths Group is a global engineering company focusing on high performance applications, building and sustaining market-leading businesses in growth sectors. Smiths Group has four divisions - Aerospace, Detection, Medical and Specialty Engineering - with products ranging from an integrated aerial refuelling and mission control system for the Boeing 767 Tanker Transport to rate and pulse strength measurements devices. Its customers range from civilian and military aircraft manufacturers to governments, petrochemical companies and hospitals. .

The requirements
Smiths' legacy environment consisted of relationships with over 40 traditional carriers, using virtually every technology available. Smiths found themselves struggling with management of multiple disparate frame-relay, leased-line, Public VPN and even some old x.25 networks, all managed separately. Deploying global business applications on this legacy infrastructure was not possible.

As part of an overall consolidation programme, Smiths Group was looking for a single provider to deliver a network solution that would connect around 100 sites, focusing on hard-to-reach locations that traditional Asset Based Carriers (ABCs) were unable to support on a global scale. The solution had to be highly scalable to support future bandwidth requirements to meet changing demands and guarantee access to business-critical, financial and simple email applications. more ...