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Super Group

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Connectivity Case Study:

  • Company: Super Group
  • Sector: Private
  • Size: Listed
  • Industry: Logistics
  • Footprint: National

Executive summary

Super Group is a supply chain management business with a vast network of branches, warehouses and dealerships.

They approached Reflex Solutions, through Page Automation, to attend to their corporate WAN, security and unified communication requirements.

Frustrations experienced

  • Current WAN was not architected with agility and scalability in mind. There were multiple layers of CPE devices on site and many sites were still on diginet. Services deployed did not support their business requirements
    • Super Group provisioned an additional network over their WAN to meet their routing and security requirements.
    • Super Group also added secondary connectivity to provide telephony services, thus minimising the cost effectiveness of their WAN.
    • This complexity created many possible points of failure and engineering time to troubleshoot and maintain.
  • Inefficient data centre replication
    • The current connectivity between their data centre in Sandton and their data centre in Kempton Park was limited. This created multiple challenges to Super Group’s disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
  • Current network provider was not agile. For example, Super Group was bound to long time frames in order for a single site to go live.

Solution

  • After consulting with Super Group’s senior management, we redesigned the MPLS network. The redesign included the following:
    • 10 Gbps redundant links connecting Super Group’s primary data centre in Sandton and disaster recovery data centre in Kempton. This was achieved due to Reflex Solutions’ extensive DWDM at layer 1, full MEF certified network at layer 2 and MPLS network at layer 3 fibre network.
    • Furthermore, we implemented full redundancy by having two completely separate fibre paths to the Super Group Head Office and Super Group Distribution Centre.
  • Removed complexities of Super Group’s network.
    • We connected all 96 sites to Reflex’s carrier network
    • Consolidated all internet to Reflex Solutions’ low latency, high capacity centralised breakout
    • Implemented multi-tenanted Fortinet firewall solution
    • Deployed centralised security and segmentation of each business entity within Super Group.
    • This means that there is less administration, maintenance and troubleshooting needed to run a secure network.
    • Implemented QOS to support the multiple traffic loads Super Group can generate – focussing on voice and video as a priority
  • Took over the management of all Super Group’s primary networks, secondary networks and telephony; leaving them to focus on their core business.
  • Reflex supplied CPE devices that can run at one Gbps and can communicate directly over fibre, ethernet, LTE and DSL. These devices are full SD WAN, MEF and MPLS capable.
  • Deployed extensive Dect telephony to their motor dealerships and logistics sites - creating true mobility and efficiency of employees. One of the advantages of the AVAYA platform is that it does traditional voice features extremely well. Voice is key for great client experience in the logistics and motor industry.
  • Porting all of Super Group’s numbers to the Reflex voice termination network which reduces cost, simplifies infrastructure and increases the stability and flexibility of the solution.
  • Reporting and analytics of services through Reflex’s big data drive platform that was inhouse developed.

What made them decide to use Reflex?

  • Reflex assigned a Fractional CIO to Super Group instead of an account manager. Our Fractional CIO assists Super Group’s IT team with a variety of responsibilities including technology design, strategic business planning and development, budgeting, security, audits and business continuity designs.
  • We took the time to understand Super Group’s internal network in order to come up with the best possible solution that supports their business requirements.
  • Agility – we design and implement ICT solutions with a standard’s base approach that supports rapid deployment.
  • Range of services - this allows us to really use our WAN to its full potential, if the additional services such as Voice, Security, Cloud, Switch management didn’t exist within Reflex it would take far longer and possibly never to complete Super Group’s desired projects.
  • Last Mile options - with our expansive South African footprint we wanted to get as much fibre as possible to all of Super Group’s sites. Due to Reflex’s own expansive network as well as their relationship with all the other last mile providers, they were able to give Super Group over 90% fibre coverage.
  • Technical ability to create a bespoke solution for ALL of Super Group’s ICT needs
  • Over delivered on our SLA

Facts and figures:

R1-million saving a month

A network of 96 branches, warehouses and distribution points

Over 2.5 Petabytes of data processed by Super Group’s data centre over 5 months

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