Customer Profiles

Force10 TeraScale E-Series Anchors Vectant’s Advanced Service Delivery Network

Over the last several years, competition and government support has propelled broadband penetration in Japan, establishing it as one of the world’s most advanced broadband markets. In fact, the Computer Industry Almanac ranks Japan as the third largest broadband market in the world with 26.4 million subscribers and among the fastest growing. According to Point-Topic, Japan added 20.9 million broadband lines in the first nine months of 2005.

Leveraging a well developed fiber backbone, Japan-based service providers are offering consumers as much as five Megabits per second (Mbps) of connectivity for as little as $25 a month. With broadband available at low prices from a range of competing providers, service providers are distinguishing themselves through guaranteed performance and advanced service offerings.

Faced with increasing demand for bandwidth intensive services, Vectant, a subsidiary of Japan-based Global Solution Co., Ltd., has deployed the Force10 TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers at its network edge to deliver reliable and predictable services to its growing customer base. The TeraScale E-Series introduces to Vectant’s network a high level of scalability that can accommodate growing demand both today and in the future.

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series: Delivering Security to Protect Service Delivery

Leveraging the capacity of its IP backbone, Vectant delivers a variety of applications and networking services, including leased lines, virtual private networks and security services to enterprises throughout the country. While Vectant had access to the high capacity backbone, it struggled with finding a way to reliably and securely bring that capacity to its customers.

Vectant’s existing routing solution could not effectively insulate the network from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or other malicious traffic, such as worms and viruses. Without the ability to defend against such attacks, it became challenging for Vectant to consistently deliver the advanced services its customers demanded.

"To provide high quality services, we were in need of a router sufficiently strong to counter DDoS or worms," said Aoki Masaki, testing engineer for Vectant’s research and development group. "We were determined to find a high performance product that would ensure network security."

The persistence of DDoS attacks coupled with the increasing viciousness of the attacks challenged traditional switches and routers that Vectant tested. And while most of these solutions did have a filtering function, the use of that function resulted in a sharp reduction in system-level performance.

In search of a new routing solution to secure the network that would not compromise performance, Vectant turned to the Force10 TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers. In the TeraScale E300, Vectant gained the robust security features it required to protect its network as well as the performance to guarantee delivery of its advanced services.

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series leverages a unique three CPU architecture that distributes switching, routing and management functionalities between three distinct processors, ensuring that an attack on one function does not impact the rest of the system. Additionally, by providing separate data and control planes, the TeraScale E-Series also allows network managers to always access the system, even under attack. And with advanced rate limiting algorithms, the TeraScale E-Series is able to prevent traffic floods that could cripple the system. In addition, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series can support more than one million access control lists (ACLs) without impacting performance, providing Vectant with another layer of security.

"I think high security is one of the assets of the Force10 solution that distinguishes it from other products," said Masaki Ohta, testing engineer for Vectant. "The E-Series is easy to operate and has a quick and meticulous response in the event of trouble."

Bringing Core Routing to the Edge

In its network, each Force10 TeraScale E-Series supports 288 Gigabit and 48 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports, providing Vectant with a highly scalable platform at the edge that enables seamless expansion as demand for services continues to increase. In addition to this high density, the TeraScale E-Series provides Vectant with an unmatched level of resiliency. With fully redundant components and modular software, the TeraScale E-Series ensures Vectant does not face any unplanned downtime.

The combination of high density and resiliency enable Vectant to not only simplify its network architecture but also reduce the total cost of ownership. Supporting greater density than any other comparable solution, the TeraScale E-Series allows Vectant to process more traffic on a single system, reducing both capital and operational expenditures. "In addition to high reliability and performance, the high density delivers a lower per port price," said Aoki. "It contributes to saving both space and power, which makes it more appealing in terms of price competitiveness compared to products from other companies."

High Performance Networking for Advanced Service Delivery

"Our business, as well as the businesses of our customers, depends on our network," said Yuji Ohta, also part of the research and development group at Vectant. "True to our expectations, the E300 runs securely without any trouble even when traffic is running at 10 Gig."

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series delivers the performance, security and resiliency Vectant requires to bring its customers the advanced services they demand. The unique combination of density and resiliency enables Vectant to reduce its capital, operating and management expenses while delivering predictable service performance to its customers.

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