We report how The Princess Royal Trust has gained in economy and effectiveness as a result of implementing a secure Virtual Private Network.
Better performance and cost savings ? these are the twin benefits that the Princess Royal Trust has experienced as a result of implementing a secure Virtual Private Network using Equiinet’s NetPilot Internet server appliance. The Trust, an umbrella organisation for a network of 100 carers’ centres throughout the UK, has offices in London and Glasgow. Two large SQL databases sit on a server at the London site and constant access is also needed from the Glasgow office. The Trust’s IT Manager Chris Cutler said his first task upon joining the company recently was to review the IT and data communications set-up. Not only did the two offices use ISDN dial-up routers that were growing older and breaking down regularly, huge bills were also being run up by the open, costly ISDN line between London and Glasgow. Chris Cutler decided a switch from ISDN to ADSL would be a good way of reducing the cost and he approached Equiinet reseller Knowall, based in Fulham. He opted to take Knowall’s advice and install a NetPilot at each office and operate a single domain via the VPN software. Now, the location of the server is completely transparent.
Better and money-saving
Chris Cutler says: ?It’s one of those rare installations where you get better performance and you save money. In truth, it was pretty obvious we needed to go forward with this solution.? Simon Froom from Knowall, which has installed a number of NetPilot VPN solutions on the back of a bundled ADSL service from the ISP Firstnet, says: ?There are a number of dedicated firewall or VPN products on the markets but NetPilot stands out because of its multi-functionality. You get everything you need for secure Internet access and email in one fit-and-forget box.? Princess Royal Trust, with a new office about to come on stream in Chorley, is typical of many multiple site organisations that have connected between sites via leased-line or ISDN dial-up from each remote site ? both of them expensive options. More and more organisations today are setting up Virtual Private Networks because they enable communication across the very cheap public network that is the internet. Equiinet (www.equiinet.com), the UK internet server appliances firm, has enhanced its NetPilot family by introducing VPN versions of both NetPilot and its bigger brother NetPilot Enterprise, which between them cover applications involving five to 500 networked PC users.
