Following a competitive tender process, COWI opted for a ProCurve solution because of ProCurve’s commitment to offering customers flexible and scalable solutions that support future growth. In addition, the ProCurve solution was considered much easier to manage than other vendors’ offerings thanks to the user friendly management software.

“We selected ProCurve over other leading vendors because of its ability to provide COWI with a secure and easily managed centralised solution with redundancy to support the Microsoft SharePoint cluster. We believe ProCurve does this better than any other vendor,” says Bo Taanning, COWI IT network administrator.

“The final factors that swayed the decision were a well established and trusted relationship with the ProCurve Denmark team, and just as important, a dedicated team of consultants who worked with us to approve the network plans and provided technical advice when needed,” continues Taanning.

Finally and at no additional cost, ProCurve’s European Network Design Center (ENDC) in Boeblingen, Germany worked with COWI to develop a comprehensive network design based on their specific requirements.

Before the migration took place, COWI consulted with ProCurve on the network’s redesign and laid down over 2,800 new cables. A prerequisite before the deal being signed was to complete the exchange of the core solution within 12 hours to ensure that employees would suffer no disruptions on their return from the Christmas break.

Within the central data centre, ProCurve replaced COWI’s existing switches with ProCurve’s award-winning 5400 series switches. Based on ProVision ASIC technology, these high-performance switches deliver intelligence at the edge of the network, allowing project co-workers dynamic access to information. This has directly resulted in COWI being able to further streamline and speed up its business processes.

Bolstering the high levels of security required for a global network, and providing heavy duty asset management, ProCurve’s next-generation 8200 series switches were installed at the core of COWI’s network. The 8200 switches, which are supported by ProCurve’s comprehensive Lifetime Warranty as standard, have not only allowed COWI to move from a 1Gb to a 10Gb infrastructure, the bandwidth and performance needed to execute the Microsoft SharePoint cluster, but they also provide enough available redundancy to support other applications on the network.

Globally, COWI’s offices are able to connect via 10Gb links to the HP Virtual Connect BladeSystem servers run from the head office in Lyngby. Upgrades will be implemented in all the Danish subsidiary offices, replacing the current switches with the ProCurve 5400zl series switches to increase redundancy and security levels.

ProCurve Manager Plus (PCM+), an advanced network management tool, has also been installed to allow the COWI IT team to easily manage the network and oversee network performance. As well as helping them to monitor the network, PCM+ provides recommendations for alternative configurations, periodically collecting configurations from the switches and storing them for easy documentation and potential roll-back if required. All network configurations can now be done centrally, eliminating the need for direct configuration of each switch.

With the new ProCurve Adaptive Network in place, COWI can now easily integrate wireless services throughout their network. By adding ProCurve Wireless Edge Services Modules (WESM) to one or more of their ProCurve switches, they would be able to choose from various ProCurve Radio Ports (210, 220 or 230) to provide wireless connections where needed. The new ProCurve switches have, by default, 802.3af Power over Ethernet on all gigabit copper ports, making it easy for COWI to implement Ethernet powered radio ports.

A ProCurve solution based on WESM technology directly integrated into the switches ensures a consistent user experience, regardless of whether access is via a wired or wireless connection. It also makes it easier for network administrators to apply policies and access rights seamlessly on both the wired and wireless networks.

“We have had a strong and trusted relationship with HP ProCurve for over seven years, and made a strategic decision to upgrade our entire system with a ProCurve Adaptive Network because of their previous support, knowledge of our business and our technical requirements. We’re definitely considering extending the network with ProCurve wireless technology,” concludes Taanning.

To upgrade COWI’s core network with a 10 Gb backbone to support a new future proof ProCurve Adaptive Network solution.

• Selected ProCurve to implement a future proof ProCurve Adaptive Network solution.
• Implemented ProCurve management software in addition to award-winning ProCurve switches to effectively and securely control the network infrastructure.

• COWI now has an easy to manage, future proof networking infrastructure that supports Microsoft SharePoint.
• Project co-workers across the globe have secure, dynamic access to information.

• Staff now have access to digital information regardless of location.
• COWI can safeguard against rogue users of the network and manage user access thanks to ProCurve management software.
• COWI now has a complete, secure, adaptive network to support future growth.

HP ProCurve is the Network of Choice for best-in-class solutions, products and services for wired and wireless networks. ProCurve's Adaptive Networks vision enables customers to implement an open, standards-based network infrastructure that adapts to the changing needs of users, applications and organizations. ProCurve was positioned in the Leaders quadrant in research and advisory firm Gartner Inc.'s 2008 Magic Quadrant Report for Global Campus LANs and is No. 2 worldwide in Ethernet switch market revenue and ports according to Dell'Oro Group.

Further information on ProCurve networking solutions and products is available at www.procurve.com.