- Case Study
- Pets – Network
Pets – Network
Case StudyAbout
Pets embarked on an ambitious project to condense two of their previous distribution facilities into a single super distribution centre of approximately 800,000sq ft located in Stafford.
The new facility provides storage and distribution for a wide range of products including food stuffs, medicines, toys and animal furniture, as well as logistics support, recycling services and high specification office facilities.
Sudlows were commissioned to design, deploy and support the active network and wireless infrastructure for this exciting project.
The Brief
Pets were keen to engage with a partner with established credentials in the design and deployment of network solutions in largescale distribution facilities. The organisations’ need from the network was to have a reliable, easy to manage, yet highly resilient network topology that could support the range of systems, users and applications that were to be deployed in the distribution centre.
The design of the wireless component of the network was a critical piece of the solution as it had to cater for a range of devices and applications such as voice picking, but also be adaptable enough to cater for changes in the RF environment such as attenuation as stock profiles changed around the distribution centre.
Pets also required the solution to be low maintenance from an organisational perspective and required Sudlows to provide a support offering over three years that provided support and response times suitable for a critical business facility.
The Project
The overall solution to support the full network infrastructure for this 800,000sq ft complex includes a range of access switches, distribution switches, security gateways and internal and external wireless access points.
All network infrastructure is fully resilient with incoming services being presented in both the Primary and Secondary Equipment Rooms with a fully diverse fibre backbone topology providing links to 28 other cabinet locations spread across the site.
Wireless access points are split between different switches so that even in the event of a switch failure, suitable wireless signal would still exist in any given area. All networking products deployed are from Juniper and full cloud management and visibility is provided via the MIST portal with appropriate services for wired and wireless assurance as well as MARVIS virtual network assistant.
Sudlows continue to support the network across the required three-year support term including reactive needs and proactive maintenance such as firmware upgrades and annual wireless health check surveys.
A summary of the services and hardware provided include:
- Client Workshops.
- Full High-Level and Low-Level Design.
- Predictive and On-Site wireless surveys.
- 2no high performance security gateways.
- 2no high performance 48 port fibre switches.
- 80no access switches.
- 2no MIST edge appliances (visitor Wi-Fi concentrator).
- 237no wireless access points.
- Various antenna types of WAPs
- Full deployment, testing and transition support.
- Three-year reactive and proactive maintenance package.
In addition to the active networking hardware, Sudlows also designed and deployed all the passive infrastructure including full comms room design and build for the Primary and Secondary Comms Rooms and all edge cabinets, fibre cabling and Category 6a structured cabling outlets.
Conclusion
Sudlows delivered on the client’s brief by designing and deploying a high quality, fully resilient network architecture that comfortably meets the business’ current and planned demands within the distribution centre.
Working closely with Pets, a collaborative approach was taken to ensure that all the business’ needs were fully catered for and that this collaborative approach continues throughout the three year support and maintenance contract being delivered by Sudlows.
Testimonial
Phil Guy, Senior Project Manager at Pets, commented:
“As this is a critical distribution facility, reliability is a huge factor and I’m confident that with the resiliency, ease of use and scalability built into Sudlows’ design, the active network will provide a capable foundation for the business’ needs for a long time to come.”
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