Vanco sweetens Südzucker’s network

Europe's number 1 sugar company centralises its network and IT
April 13th 2005 – Südzucker AG has opted for Virtual Network Operator, Vanco (FTSE: VAN), to connect its 70 locations in 13 countries – the majority of which are in Germany, Belgium and France – via MPLS and IPSec.

The IPSec protocol provides encryption of the data traffic. With this new solution, Südzucker is developing a network ready for increasing international alignment and stronger competition on the sugar market. Vanco is combining the networks previously managed by local carriers into a centralised overall solution. The five-year contract has a contract value of several million euros.

The establishment of new business divisions, including functional food, starch, fruit preparations/condensed extracts and Bioethanol, as well as the integration of companies in traditional sugar segments, represents new challenges for Südzucker and its network requirements. At the same time, the network must also be able to integrate future locations into the overall solution.

“Vanco’s Virtual Network Operator model offers us the possibility to take the country-specific requirements of the individual locations into account when connecting the network,“ explains Klaus Koddenberg, Head of Systems and Networks at Südzucker. Regarding their decision to choose Vanco, Mr Koddenberg comments, “In this way, we get a tailor-made solution. And despite centralization, Vanco offers us a local contact person on the spot."

Via O Zone, Vanco’s online network service portal, the food group benefits from clearly defined network parameters and is able to constantly monitor the performance of its network, and has access to network analyses and statistics at any time.

Apart from the network, Südzucker will also be centralising the data centres and applications. SAP servers are being consolidated and Citirx terminal servers installed for central applications.