HP ProCurve Networking - Klantverhalen

	ProCurve Networking: the new heart of Microsoft Technology Centers
	“Our Microsoft Technology Centers require state-of-the-art technology, combined with reliability, that is easy to configure, manage and maintain. If you take these elements into consideration, ProCurve Networking is the obvious choice.” John Mathieu Director Microsoft Technology Center Global Alliance

Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs) around the world have replaced outdated switching equipment from their previous network vendor with advanced technology from ProCurve Networking by HP. This new networking infrastructure will enable the MTCs to showcase Microsoft’s leading-edge technologies to its most important enterprise and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) customers.

Established in 2001, MTCs showcase the latest technologies and solutions from Microsoft and its strategic partners. Each MTC has a team of experts that work with customers to plan, design and evaluate customised solutions using Microsoft and partner technologies including ProCurve, prior to deployment in customers’ own IT environments. In this high-tech and missioncritical environment, it is essential that a reliable high-performance network infrastructure is in place.

The centers provide three main offerings that match the different stages in the customers’ evaluation process. These include strategy briefings, architecture design sessions and proof-of-concept (POC) workshops.

Developing customer solutions
According to Lars Lindstedt, Director of the MTC Thames Valley, located in Reading, England, the ProCurve network solution has had a significant impact on how the MTC operates. “ProCurve gives us the increased flexibility that we require to put together often complex proof-of-concept projects for a variety of different customers with different requirements. In addition, our ProCurve network can handle our ever-increasing network security demands and enables us to run several totally separate proof-of-concept projects at any one time.”

Microsoft has installed award-winning ProCurve 5400zl series switches in its MTCs with integrated Gigabit and Power over Ethernet (PoE), to form what Lindstedt calls “one giant switch” with 1Gb and 10Gb interfaces. The switches are based on ProVision™ ASICs, the fourth generation of custom-designed ASICs from ProCurve, that deliver Gigabit wirespeed performance, intelligence and control to the edge of a network.

The PoE functionality built into all ProCurve 5400 switches has also been well received within the POC workshops. PoE has simplified the unified communications demonstration in which a number of IP telephones are featured. This means that phones can be connected anywhere without the need to worry about how to power them. Fewer cables, fewer devices, and greater simplicity have made the unified communications demonstration even more compelling.

“The ProCurve infrastructure has given the MTCs greatly enhanced network power and the ability to adapt, without compromising security. We have more network ports than we had with the old system and we have also increased our bandwidth significantly. These elements are key to successfully demonstrating our showcase solutions. Furthermore, we have total confidence in the reliability of our new ProCurve network,” says Lindstedt.

Projects running on separate networks
MTCs consistently have a number of different POC studies on the go at the same time, and each requires a different configuration of hardware and software running on a separate Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN). This means that the POC environment has to be taken apart and rebuilt every week, and it is essential to be able to recreate it as quickly as possible with 2 minimal disruption.

“The tools provided by ProCurve make set up much easier compared to the old system. For the POC projects we need to pull together a network of equipment and software to meet each customer’s specific requirements. The ProCurve 5400 switches give us flexibility across all of our desktops and servers, and the ProCurve Manager Plus software (PCM+) and Identity Driven Manager (IDM) monitoring tools we get with ProCurve are much more powerful and user-friendly than our old vendor solutions, making management of Virtual Local Area Networks much easier,” says Lindstedt.

Replacing the former vendor’s switch solution with the more powerful ProCurve offering was done seamlessly without any disruptions to ongoing projects. Comparing the process to a heart transplant Lindstedt says:“This was a tribute not just to the technology but also to the ProCurve engineers and the MTC lab staff who worked through a weekend to get the job done. We took out our previous vendor infrastructure on the Friday evening and by Monday morning we were fully up and running with the whole network replaced. There would have been six very unhappy customers if that had not gone smoothly. Our customers are big organisations and the projects we do are major ones, so this is a far from trivial exercise for us.”

ProCurve showcased to all MTC visitors
In the near future, Microsoft will start presenting joint demonstrations with its and ProCurve’s technologies for clients such as financial institutions, where security is a major concern and a highly available network is a must. With the aid of technologies such as the recently introduced ProCurve Network Immunity Manager, and ProCurve Network Access Control Module 800 integrated into the ProCurve portfolio all managed by the ProCurve Manager Plus network management tool, security threats are effectively countered.

In the meantime, all customers visiting the center will be exposed to ProCurve solutions. Lindstedt explains:“We will be showcasing the ProCurve technology to all kinds of customers who visit the facility. The ProCurve equipment is paramount to our global technology centers. All of the project work and all of the demonstrations that we showcase are run on ProCurve switches, so all guests to the MTC will see the reliability of the network based on ProCurve technology.”

Another very attractive element to this networking solution, according to Lindstedt, is the ProCurve Lifetime Warranty* and free firmware upgrades on most ProCurve products. “With the previous vendor, the lack of warranty protection was a concern, but with ProCurve we know that in the unlikely event there is a faulty switch, it will be replaced immediately,” says Lindstedt.

Replacing the old vendor network with the high-performing ProCurve solution has been so successful in the UK, Germany, France and Dubai, that Microsoft is now implementing the new ProCurve infrastructure at all MTCs worldwide, including those located in North America, India, China and Taiwan. John Mathieu, Director, Microsoft Technology Center Global Alliance concludes:“Our Microsoft Technology Centers require stateof-the-art technology combined with reliability that is easy to configure, manage and maintain. If you take these elements into consideration, ProCurve Networking is the obvious choice.”