Henkel optimises European networks

Branded article manufacturer Henkel is using a new application traffic management system to control its wide area network (WAN) in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The German maker of household and DIY brands including Persil, Loctite and No More Nails migrated from an old frame relay WAN in Europe to a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network in 2006 and required guaranteed data compression and transparency throughout the EMEA region, comprising some 255 sites.

To optimise data compression, traffic control and prioritisation in the migration, a management system was needed to control the network and offer Quality of Service (QoS) reporting with better granularity for monitoring application bandwidth.

The company has chosen to deploy an application traffic management system provided by Ipanema Technologies to offer application centric, dynamic optimisation of network capacities and which is operated by information and communications technology (ICT) provider T-Systems.

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Besides protection of individual user sessions, Henkel now benefits from a detailed view of data traffic, enabling precise bandwidth planning and checking of service level agreements (SLAs).

A further benefit is that the branded article manufacturer can fine tune the system in-house in the areas of reporting and prioritising critical applications like SAP, Lotus Notes or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) to run just as smoothly at the branches as at head office, optimally adjusting it to specific requirements.

A 25-year veteran enterprise technology expert, Miya Knights applies her deep understanding of technology gained through her journalism career to both her role as a consultant and as director at Retail Technology Magazine, which she helped shape over the past 17 years. Miya was educated at Oxford University, earning a master’s degree in English.

Her role as a journalist has seen her write for many of the leading technology publishers in the UK such as ITPro, TechWeekEurope, CIO UK, Computer Weekly, and also a number of national newspapers including The Times, Independent, and Financial Times.