The National Trust for Scotland future-proofs its network

The National Trust for Scotland, one of the UK’s largest conservation and heritage charities, has selected Brocade to implement a new network architecture as the organisation looks to create a robust, future-proof infrastructure that can support the New IP.

Scotland’s largest membership organisation, the National Trust for Scotland is an independent charity created in 1931 to preserve and protect Scottish natural and human heritage. The charity is responsible for 190,000 acres of countryside and employs 540 full-time and 750 seasonal staff. With 130 geographically dispersed IT sites linked to a core network that had not been updated for some time, the National Trust for Scotland needed a network infrastructure that could support its employees effectively, both in the short and long term.

“Our existing core IT infrastructure was certainly in need of an update,” commented Scott Newton, Head of IT, National Trust for Scotland. “Although as an organisation we take conservation very seriously, there was a risk that this was starting to extend to our network as well. This meant that our IT team was having to spend more and more time just keeping things up and running. As user demand for connectivity and bandwidth continues to grow, we simply would not have been able to cope. We needed to invest in an infrastructure that would allow staff to access the online resources they need, quickly and reliably.”

Having identified the need for change, the charity assessed multiple vendors, eventually shortlisting three. After an extensive evaluation process, National Trust of Scotland decided that Brocade offered the best combination of advanced functionality and value for the money spent.

National Trust for Scotland is now deploying Brocade® VDX® 6730 switches across its core network. These high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) fixed-configuration switches with LAN and native Fibre Channel ports are specifically designed to improve network utilisation, maximise application availability, increase scalability, and dramatically simplify network architectures. The charity also plans to deploy Brocade ICX® 6450 switches across its access and campus networks. These enterprise-class stackable LAN switches are designed to meet the growing demands placed on campus networks and allow organisations to scale their networks as their requirements change.

“Having examined all the options, it was clear that Brocade offered the best fit for our organisation,” commented Newton. “As a charity, we always need to make sure that we’re getting good value for the money. In this case, that meant that we needed a solution that was cost-effective but that would also give us the functionality we would need in the long term. I was aware of Brocade’s offering and their focus on emerging technologies such as SDN and a move towards the New IP, so I was confident that they would be able to deliver the future-proof network that we wanted.”

“To date, the deployment has been hugely successful,” Newton continued. “We now have 40 GbE connection speeds up and down the stack, which is a massive improvement on what we had before. Our core infrastructure is now also far more reliable and resilient, which has significantly improved the experience for our users and helped the IT team to spend time on other projects, rather than focusing on just keeping the network up and running.”

Joy Gardham, Regional Director, EMEA West at Brocade commented, “The National Trust for Scotland was facing the same problem that is currently affecting many organisations, from all sectors. All too often, network infrastructures are still based on principles and architectures that were first established 20 years ago. It is no surprise that these networks are unable to cope with the growing pressures brought about by mobile computing, cloud-based services, and Big Data. At Brocade, we believe that a new approach to IP networking is required if businesses are to take full advantage of these technologies in the long term, and we are delighted to have been chosen as the partner that could help the National Trust for Scotland tackle this challenge. We look forward to working closely with them to help deliver a world-class, future-proof network that can support the business, both now and for years to come.”