MphasiS is a global IT and BPO services company, which consistently delivers real improvements in business performance for its clients, through a combination of technology know-how, domain and process expertise. MphasiS' 24/7 global delivery model optimizes cost, enhances productivity and improves time-to-market through its twenty-nine offices in nine countries. MphasiS supports G1000 companies around the world in the improvement of their business processes. Their emphasis is on developing flexible platforms that allow their clients to rapidly implement business processes with minimal capital outlays.

Challenges
MphasiS required a superior telecom solution that would provide end-to-end connectivity between all its call centers. A solution that is scalable, has 99.99% availability, QoS and BoD features, and more importantly, it had to be service level agreement (SLA) driven. "The present solution had limited redundancy, was not scalable, had no SLAs and limited usability to P2P links between sites. Also, multiple vendors and links had increased management hassles, it had limited capability for BCP/DR and high TCO." says Sam Handa, Network Operations leader, ITO India, MphasiS.

This architecture of the network also resulted in a host of challenges, such as need for end-to-end connectivity, high complexity and network costs due to building this type of connectivity on E1 leased line, lack of network management, etc.

Solution
MsphasiS wanted end-to-end connectivity between all its call centers, on a network that is capable of growing in direct proportion to its growth. Given this challenge, Airtel offered a solution that was just right for MphasiS. A state-of-the-art multi protocol label switching (MPLS) network which enabled them to attain a highly available network by providing dual points of presence (PoPs) in various cities as well as dual last mile on fiber optic ring architecture, differentiated QoS for voice and data traffic, and bandwidth on demand (BoD) feature to increase bandwidth immediately.

MpahsiS' access network connected its centers in different cities where each site was connected to MPLS (PoP-1) on Bharti last mile and to MPLS (PoP-2) on an alternate service provider last mile. Both were provisioned in primary and back- up mode, so that if one goes down, the other would become active automatically. Each location was connected on fiber in self-healing ring architecture to ensure high uptime.

The same line of thought ran along its core network where dual redundant PoPs ensured each node is interconnected with more than two backbone nodes, so that at any given time there is no single point of failure.

Class of service ensured impeccable provisioning for voice and data traffic while the BoD feature provided the flexibility to cope with on-demand bandwidth requirement. This solution was purely SLA driven and SLAs of the agreement revolved around three main factors: availability 99.9+%, round trip delays between various sites, and packet delivery.

"Though the solution is designed to be a high availability solution, MPLS provides flexibility to meet our BCP / DR plans for our customers, since we can route traffic between any of the MPLS sites. This quality gives an edge to Mphasis over our competitors," says Handa.

While developing the solution for MphasiS, Airtel considered issues of redundancy, scalability, QoS for traffic and SLAs. While implementing MPLS solution Mphasis had already taken future growth into picture and thereby all last miles except few were taken on Ethernet. Hence, it gives a scope for expansion to meet upcoming business demands.

Verdict
Bharti has a strong presence in India from geographical coverage. It offered us lower TCO, guaranteed SLAs, total solution in terms of redundancy, scalability and flexibility meeting Mphasis demands. "The promise of end-to-end ownership of service and pricing structure that is directly related to market dynamics and therefore benefiting us also made us prefer Bharti," says Handa.

Sonia Sharma
sonias@cybermedia.co.in