Seawheel

Seawheel Ltd is a container operator, providing door-to-door unit load freight services throughout Europe, with offices spread over 7 European countries.

We have used the intY and VPN technology for over a year now and have found the reliability comparable with point-to-point ISDN and the leased line connections we have at our other locations. In fact, we now find performance to be faster.Using the VPN across the internet has also proved to be more economic, particularly for the more heavily used international links.

Changing to a faithworks-i.t' intY-VPN has given us more control of our network whilst retaining the level of support we need. Changes across our network are now done rapidly, lessening the effect on individual users and increasing system performance.

We rely on sub-second response times across our network, and our online system provides this.

The intY's are connected to the public Internet, using a variety of grades of line. The line grade used at each location has been chosen according to whether broadband is available and the capacity required to support the volume of communication we need. All the remote sites connect to Ipswich using VPN's via the Internet, which provides access to our main Central Database Transaction System running on an IBM AS/400 and our email server.

Ipswich and Rotterdam are our main control centres and each has a set of powerful Windows Servers running a Transport Management System.

Data to and from these servers and our main system pass over VPN links, and our software supplier also supports the application over VPN links. So we are using VPN technology in many ways.

Our Ipswich intY also handles other functions: It gives access to our e-Commerce system which runs on a separate IBM server, which provides load track and trace, plus direct booking facilities for our customer base over the internet.

Our Ipswich intY supports an Intranet which holds the internal copy of the Seawheel Home page brochure website, enabling staff from any Seawheel office to monitor developments to it before we publish new releases to the Internet. To ensure security of Seawheel's networks and systems, the e-commerce web server is located in a demilitarised zone controlled by the intY. The brochure website is being worked on by an external web designer and can be monitored as it develops by our IT and sales staff.

Selected staff at all our VPN sites have access to browse the internet.

Seawheel has recently placed orders for faithworks-i.t to commission intY equipment and VPN connections at four more locations in Ireland - Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Mullagh. During 2003 / 2004 faithworks-i.t rolled out this solution to all Seawheels major sites throughout Europe.

Patrick Brown
IT Manager
Seawheel Ltd