Bridge Shipping case study - February 2008

 

Bridge Shipping Business Network Needs

Bridge Shipping Ltd, formed in 1987, provide customs clearance services through Southampton, Felixstowe, Tilbury and Thamesport. With over 50% of their consignments being foodstuffs (this being made up of both fresh and canned goods) Bridge Shipping have a need for a reliable and efficient solution to present Customs entries and manage goods through the respective inventory systems.

Robert Leek, Managing Director, embraced the challenge of trying to rationalise from his "traditional" CNS Net ISDN connection, for Southampton and Tilbury access, combined with a dedicated Kilostream from MCP Felixstowe and Thamesport access, down to a single network connection capable of connecting to both CNS and MCP. Combined with the access to the port systems Robert identified the increased importance of Internet and E-mail to Bridge Shipping and wanted to combine all his communications into one solution.

The Albacore solution

Albacore Systems were able to meet all of Bridge Shipping's requirements, providing a single Internet connection configured to meet the security requirements of both MCP and CNS and also to support Bridge Shipping's growing use of the Internet.

By supplying and managing a dedicated up to 2Mb connection to the Internet, secured behind state-of-the-art firewalls, Albacore solved all of Bridge Shipping's challenges. Following the CNS Internet access strategy, announced Q4 2005, by CNS, Albacore established a CNS VPN Facilities Managed (CNS VPN FM) connection with CNS to provide CNS InSite access. Liaising with MCP, Albacore supplied a fixed IP connection into the MCP system supporting their current Amaril connection and tested through to the Destin8 UAT system. Both CNS and MCP access services were seamlessly cut over from the old network connections to the new Internet based solutions.

Through use of Albacore's e-mail servers Albacore are now able to virus and spam check all of Bridge Shipping's inbound e-mails, filtering out all harmful and time wasting content. Of course Internet web access is provided to all Bridge Shipping staff via the installed firewall.

As part of the management service supplied by Albacore, the Internet link and associated equipment are pro-actively monitored by Albacore to detect any failures or overload conditions, if detected allowing a fast and responsive resolution.

Bridge Shipping Benefits

Robert Leek said, "I now have a single Internet connection that serves all my Company needs. The solution has saved me upwards of £5,000 per annum and importantly has provided me with a single point of contact [Albacore]."

Bridge Shipping have five staff who require access to CNS, MCP and the Internet, everyone can now use all the facilities when ever and as often as they want, knowing the solution is always available at a fixed monthly fee.

CNS VPN Facilities Managed

In October 2005 CNS announced the launch of their Internet access policy, for their current and future product ranges.

Charlie Poole of CNS says "To access the current Port services over the Internet Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are required. These can be complex and time consuming things to establish. CNS has elected to form a group of approved VPN suppliers who are specialists in this field. To date Albacore have implemented approximately 20 solutions to Customer sites, all are well project managed and implemented on time, enabling all involved parties to focus on their core businesses."