At 16:00 hours on Tuesday, Openet's Managing Director received an international phone call from Zambia. The client's primary Perth to Zambia satellite link was down due to equipment failure and there was a lead time of at least three days to get a replacement satellite modem. Essential services such as email, accounting applications and telephony were interrupted.

A secondary satellite link provisioned by ITC Global was operational, however, this only provided Internet access.

Openet was asked to work with ITC Global to implement a workaround to restore services as soon as possible. Fourteen hours later the client was up and running with essential services restored.

One phone call between Openet and ITC Global got the rescue mission underway.

ITC would reconfigure the existing satellite service into a private point to point link between the client's Zambian operation and ITC's Perth hub.

Openet would design the necessary IP network, deploy a router in ITC's Perth operation centre and establish VPN connectivity back to the client's Perth office subsequently dealing with routing of traffic on the client's global wide area network (WAN).

Having worked with ITC Global previously, network design was accomplished without fuss and information was distributed to the involved parties via email. As procurement of a router in the necessary time frame would be unlikely, Openet provided the client with a loan router from Openet's development environment and applied the necessary configuration. At 23:00 hours on Tuesday evening, the router was installed at ITC's operations centre while ITC applied the necessary changes to reconfigure the satellite service. By 01:00 basic end to end, connectivity was established between the client's Perth and Zambian offices. By 06:00 hours on Wednesday morning network routing was dealt with and services restored.

What were the most significant factors enabling this excellent result?

Without a doubt, the swift implementation of this solution was enabled by:

• The experience and professionalism of ITC Global and Openet staff
• An excellent working relationship and trust between the client, ITC Global, and Openet

If you or your organisation would like further information on IT consultancy services, wide area networks or satellite communications solutions please contact Openet.