WiFi
Futureproof Wi-Fi solution for a global pump manufacturer
19 February 2020
Our client
SPP Pumps is an industry-leading manufacturer of pumps and pumping solutions that operate in numerous sectors, including oil and gas, water utilities, fire protection, and transformer oil. With over 500 staff worldwide, their main research and development (R&D), pump manufacturing and test facilities are centrally located in Reading and Coleford, UK, while local sites operate in France, South Africa, Singapore, Dubai and USA.
The Challenge
SPP Pumps were running an outdated Juniper Trapeze wireless network with on premises controllers to manage their access points. This hardware-based solution using switch technology was highly inefficient in terms of scalability and flexibility, while expansion using multiple controllers and maintenance of the physical hardware was proving costly and time consuming for SPP.
The company urgently needed a future-proof wifi solution that would significantly increase operational efficiency and streamline their wireless service. Plus, when their engineers moved from one site to another, or to different areas within the same site (for instance, office to R&D zone to warehouse) they needed to be able to securely and quickly maintain network access.
In addition, SPP regularly hold conferences and have customer visitors onsite, so they wanted a secure solution that would provide siloed access for guests and employees to keep all corporate data safe.
“We chose to partner with Appurity due to their in-depth technical understanding of all things Wi-Fi-related, their professionalism and their industry expertise. They delivered a seamless integration with no downtime or interruptions to operations, which was a real bonus.”
Mark Holland, IT Manager, SPP Pumps
The Solution
Firstly, Extreme’s deployment partner Appurity conducted an in-depth assessment of SPP’s offices and production environments at their headquarters in Reading to determine which Wi-Fi system would be the right fit for the organization. The fact that the company uses huge volumes of water in their manufacturing and testing processes was a key environmental consideration.
Following the assessment, Appurity designed and implemented a fully cloud-based solution built on Extreme Extreme access points, which eliminates the need for physical controllers and enables SPP to optimise traffic performance and network resiliency.
To avoid downtime and minimise disruption, Appurity’s installers ran the old and new networks in parallel, rigorously testing the Extreme solution and ensuring everything was fully operational before the system went live.
The network is fully integrated with Radius and Active Directory to authenticate everyone accessing the WiFi network. Appurity also reconfigured SPP’s switching to enable routing over two different broadband networks, which improves security by allowing SPP to segregate corporate and guest data.
“When it comes to implementing cloud-based Wi-Fi networks, Appurity’s experts are leaders of the field. They spent a lot of time analysing our requirements, testing our existing environment and researching the right solution. We’re all absolutely delighted with the new system.”
Mark Holland, IT Manager, SPP Pumps
The Result
The Extreme wi-fi solution delivered by Appurity provides an open mobility platform that simplifies and transforms the connected experience for employees. In-built Radius and Active Directory technologies enable SPP engineers and other staff to seamlessly authenticate and securely access the network at any location they visit.
Customers and visitors can gain access to guest wireless internet, in a simple and professional manner. However, this guest traffic is kept secure and segregated, ensuring the highest security standards, because SPP’s network administrators can set clear policies for different user profiles.
Furthermore, because everything is hosted and managed in the cloud, all sites across all regions can now be effectively managed from one central console in Reading, UK, significantly increasing operational efficiency while reducing the complexity and cost of network management for SPP.
“Since Appurity installed our Extreme solution we’ve noticed significant improvements in our network stability – with zero downtime – which makes our engineers and all other staff more productive. But the real differentiator is the system is so easy to manage from one central location, which is a factor that our IT team hugely appreciates.”
Mark Holland, IT Manager, SPP Pumps
