Case Study | Aligrup S.p.A.
Aligrup S.p.A. (a partner of SPAR International)
Major Food Retail Chain choose Allied Telesis for Network Expansion in Italy
Customer Pr
ofile
Aligrup S.p.A. creates and promotes high-quality distribution
systems predominantly geared towards meeting the demand
for food products and services.
Although Aligrup S.p.A. was officially founded in 1987,
Sebastiano Scuto, a wholesale grain dealer, laid the foundations
for the company over a century ago. Since then, Aligrup S.p.A.
has played an increasing role in Sicily's economic
development.
This dev
elopment culminated in the agreement signed
between Coop and Despar. They created a common
purchasing company called Centrale Italiana.The alliance will
help improve the distribution system and achieve economies
of scale in purchase management.
Aligr
up S.p
.A. is generating
24% of their tur
no
v
er
.
The Customer Challeng
e
As Aligrup S.p.A. expanded, they needed a network that was
flexible and configured to handle the current and future needs
for a distributed system. Since the new Aligrup S.p.A. office
space in San Giovanni la Punta is large and modern, they
decided to lease part of it to turnkey contracts.They also
decided to offer the other companies infrastructure services,
including networking services.
This affected many of the decisions about their network. In
addition to paying extra attention to security levels, they
wanted to segment the netw
ork without sacrificing
performance and reliability, and to scale the network for
future needs.
Page 2 | Allied Telesis Case Study:Aligrup S.p.A. www.alliedtelesis.com
Case Study | Aligrup S.p.A.
Project Backbone infrastructure with advanced switching technology
Scope Nine La
y
er 3 Gigabit Ethernet s
witches and eight Fast Ethernet s
witches
Challenge Design a flexible network to meet current and future demands
Critical Objectiv
es
Ability to segment the netw
ork without sacrificing performance and reliability
PROFILE
Aligrup S.p.A., San Giovanni La Punta, Catania, Italy
Aligrup S.p.A.(San Giovanni La Punta), a major retailer representing Despar (SPAR International)
throughout most of Sicily, has been expanding in both physical space, reach and subsequently, its IT
network. Because of this, the food retailer needed a more secure and reliable system to meet their
needs, as well as the needs of several other companies who lease space from them in their new
location.Allied Telesis helped them develop a high-performing and more secure network solution by
providing multi-layer switches integrated with existing Allied Telesis devices.
Why Aligrup S.p.A. Selected Allied Telesis
The multi-layer switches from the Allied Telesis 9900 series
immediately proved to be ideal for supporting such a flexible
architecture. All the features that make it stand out, from its
Quality of Service (QoS) and high-density Gigabit Ethernet
ports to its non-blocking architecture and redundant power
supply units, provide a competitive advantage.
In addition, integrated support for IPv6 ensures that the
system will scale to increased use, protecting their technology
investment.
The 9900 series is particularly flexible because it can host
different types of SFP interfaces on the same platform. It
caters to any combination of copper and short-haul or long-
haul fiber links, which was required to overcome cabling
distance limitations in their large new building.
With the possibility of using traffic meters via the SNMP
management platform, Aligrup S.p.A. also has the option to
connect to billing tools in the future.These tools would be
able to charge their turnkey contract customers based on the
usage of the netw
or
k ser
vices.
Aligrup S.p.A. decided to invest in the future by expanding
and improving their IT network.They chose to involve Allied
Telesis, an expert partner.
"We've especially appreciated the technical support provided
b
y
Allied Telesis, whether directly or indirectly, throughout the
whole process of designing, deploying and supporting the
network," concluded Schilirò, who has closely monitored
ev
ery phase spanning the project's design, integration and
execution.
Key Decision Factors
Aligrup S.p.A. chose a technical solution from Allied Telesis for
many reasons; however, they had four primary ones. Reliability,
scalability, security and support.
Reliability: The redundancy protocols, bandwidth
management options and power supply units' redundancy
make the network resilient.This helps the network services to
achieve maximum reliability and uptime of critical services,
required not only for operational functionality of Aligrup
S.p.A., but also for it’s turnkey contract customers.
Instead of taking up extra space in the cabinet, the redundant
power supply unit is integrated into the switch.This compact
design does not compromise performance, since the
enhanced horizontal cooling system makes it possible to
withstand high temperatures.
The high performance level and extended QoS and
management functions help give precise network control.
Scalability: The cutting-edge switching technology supports
connections r
anging from 10Mbps to 10 Gigabit Ether
net.
The
modular design of the core machines (AT-9924Ts,
AT-9924SP), along with the wide selection of uplinks for the
switches designed for distribution (AT-9748TS/XP and
AT-8648T/2SP) provide even greater scalability for future
needs.
Security: The management security options (SSH and SSL),
authentication protocols,
hardware filters and switch port
control co
v
er ev
ery aspect of network security. In addition,
the advanced
VLAN functionality will ensure complete
separation of the different companies networks, while allowing
Aligrup S.p.A. to easily manage and maintain the network
infr
astr
ucture.
Support: Aligrup S.p.A. valued the technical support they
receiv
ed from Allied T
elesis.
Net.Co
v
er
®
is a comprehensiv
e
service and support program designed to protect vital
netw
or
k systems from unscheduled downtime.This
comprehensiv
e ser
vice includes phone suppor
t,
pr
iority
queuing, and next day product replacement.
www.alliedtelesis.com Allied Telesis Case Study:Aligrup S.p.A. | Page 3
"Aligrup S.p.A. is extremely happy with the quality and
performance of the Allied Telesis equipment,"
confirmed Daniele Schilirò, who is responsible for
networking and new technologies at Aligrup S.p.A.
Technical Overview
To achieve the level of expansion they required, Aligrup S.p.A.
used sev
eral Allied Telesis multi-layer switches.
n
9900 Series – Gigabit Multi-layer Core Switches
n
9700 Series – Gigabit Multi-layer Edge Switches
n
8600 Series – Fast Ethernet Multi-layer Edge Switches
The switches in the 9700 and 8600 series are designed for
enterprise applications.They are ideally suited as the primary
solution in the aggregation and distribution tiers of large
networks, or for server farm and data center aggregation.
The 9700 series includes a variety of 10/100/1000 Layer 3
stackable switches featuring 10G uplinks, capable of supporting
anything from a few dozen to 1,500 users. This series is
distinguished from similar devices on the market by its high
performance 40Gbps switching backplane speed and 10G
uplinks.
In addition, the main competitive benefits are scalability,
security, and reliability – down to the stacking ring architecture.
The pr
ice to performance ratio delivers excellent return on
investment.
The 8600 series switches, feature 10/100TX Fast Ethernet
copper ports with a choice of copper and fiber Gigabit
Ethernet uplinks. These have been designed to support
aggregation and access applications, but their wealth of
functions makes them ideal for use as a backbone in small
networks.They are used in the Aligrup S.p.A. network as
access machines for connecting users.
Every switch in the 8600 series is connected to the
distribution cabinet via high-speed Gigabit links. All the Layer 3
options in AlliedWare™, the firmware installed in Allied Telesis
multi-layer machines, are deployed in these switches.The
firmware supports advanced security management and QoS,
and refined user profiling.
Page 4 | Allied Telesis Case Study:Aligrup S.p.A. www.alliedtelesis.com
AT- 9 748
AT-9924Ts
AT- 8 648
AT- 8 648
AT- 9 748
AT- 8 648
AT- 8 648
Marketing
AT- 8 648
AT- 8 648
Administration
AT-9924SP
AT- 8 648
AT- 9 748
AT- 8 648
Link 10 Gigabit Fibre
Link 1 Gigabit Fibre
Link 1 Gigabit Copper
Aggregation Aggregation
AT-9924SP
AT-9924Ts
AT-9924Ts
Aggregation
Aggregation
CORE 2
CORE 1
SERVER FARM
Aligrup S.p
.A.
Network
The backbone of the network is based on the 9900 series of
core high-performance switches, which are used to
interconnect all the distr
ibution and access switches to the
server farm using both copper and fiber cabling.
The design of the network can be divided into three distinct
parts, labeled CORE#1, CORE#2 and SERVER FARM.The
network is based on a star topology, with the AT-9924Ts
switch being at the center of the network.This switch
provides all of the core routing functionality in the network.
Both the CORE#1 and SERVER FARM sites are connected
using 10 Gbit fiber optic links that terminate at the central
AT-9924Ts switch.The local MARKETING and
ADMINISTRATION groups are connected to the
AT-9748TS/XP distribution switch which is located at
CORE#2 which in turn connects to the central
AT-9924Ts switch via a copper uplink.
The network is based on two virtual LANs.The first one
(default) is intended for network users, while the second one
is dedicated to network devices and servers.
All the switches can be managed by the network
administrator from either VLAN. However, to simplify the
network configuration, and to reduce the waste of IP
addresses by implementing both the VLANs on all the
switches, static routes have been deployed.
The SNMP protocol has been activated on all the devices for
management support, and an ‘aligrup’ community has been
def
ined for managing the devices via SNMP, which has
read/write access to all the configurations.
We assigned the functions of manager and trap host (for
managing alarms and faults) to a workstation on which the
management platform was installed.This was designed to
improve the monitoring of the entire network.
All the switches used in the Aligrup S.p.A. network also come
with a Net.Cover
®
service and support contract as standard,
as do all Allied Telesis Layer 2+ managed devices.This means
that the device can be replaced by the next working day in
the event of a fault.
Allied Telesis
Founded in 1987, Allied Telesis is a member of the Allied
Telesis Group, a global provider of secure Ethernet/IP access
solutions and an industry leader in the deployment of IP Triple
Play networks over copper and fiber access infrastructure.
Our POTS-to-10G iMAP integrated Multiservice Access
Platform and iMG intelligent Multiservice Gateways, in
conjunction with advanced switching, routing, IPv6 compliant
and WDM-based transport solutions, enable public and
private network operators and service providers of all sizes to
deploy scalable, and carrier-grade networks for the cost-
effective delivery of packet-based voice, video and data
services.
www.alliedtelesis.com Allied Telesis Case Study:Aligrup S.p.A. | Page 5
FEA
TURED PRODUCTS
9900 Series
Layer 3 Advanced IPv4 and IPv6 Gigabit
switches
3 x
Allied Telesis AT-9924Ts
n
10/100/1000T x 24 ports
n
20Gbps expansion ba
ys x 2
2 x Allied Telesis AT-9924SP
n
1000X SFP x 24 por
ts
9700 Series
Layer 3 Stackable Gigabit Ethernet switches
4 x Allied Telesis AT-9748TS/XP
n
10/100/1000T x 48 ports
n
10Gbps x 2 uplink module
8600 Series
La
y
er 3 F
ast Ethernet switches
8 x Allied Telesis AT-8648T/2SP
n
10/100TX x 48 ports
n
10/100/1000T / SFP x 2 combo ports
USA Headquar
ters
|
19800 Nor
th Creek Parkway | Suite 200 | Bothell | WA 98011 | USA | T: +1 800 424 4284 | F: +1 425 481 3895
European Headquarters | Via Motta 24 | 6830 Chiasso | Switzerland | T: +41 91 69769.00 | F: +41 91 69769.11
Asia-Pacific Headquar
ters
|
11
T
ai Seng Link
|
Singapore | 534182 | T: +65 6383 3832 | F: +65 6383 3830
www
.alliedtelesis.com
©
2005 Allied Telesis Inc. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. All company names, logos, and product designs that are trademarks or registered trademarks
are the proper
ty of their respective owners. EMEA1479 EN
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