BellSouth Data Network Resiliency Allows Businesses to Quickly Re-establish Operations in New Orleans21 October 2005
When Louisiana Steam Equipment Company evacuated its New Orleans office prior to Hurricane Katrina, management was concerned that company facilities, equipment and server would sustain significant damage. However, due to the BellSouth solution in place,
the company was confident that its critical corporate data would remain secure.
"Using BellSouth(R) Managed Network VPN Service, Louisiana Steam transferred backup data each night to its facility in Houston, Texas," said Sam Canatella, operations manager, Louisiana Steam Equipment Company. "The network in place allowed us to move operational data prior to the storm and establish temporary business operations outside of New Orleans following the hurricane."
Canatella evacuated New Orleans on Aug. 27, two days prior to the storm. He accessed the server in New Orleans remotely from his hotel in Houston on the following day, initiated a final data transfer and shut down the New Orleans server.
Louisiana Steam Equipment Company carries one of the South's largest inventories for steam, air, water, oil and gas specialties, and the oil refineries, paper mills and chemical plants impacted in Louisiana represent an important segment of its customers.
"BellSouth's network helped Louisiana Steam maintain operations, regardless of location, enabling it to communicate directly with customers in the impacted storm areas," continued Canatella. "When the company re-opened the New Orleans office on Oct. 10, the operating data was seamlessly transferred back."
Cardiovascular Institute of the South (CIS), based in Houma, La., is one of the nation's largest, most comprehensive and most advanced centers for the non-invasive and surgical treatment of heart and vascular disease. BellSouth Managed Network VPN Service establishes a corporate network that is shared by each of CIS' 10 outlying clinics and physician offices.
"BellSouth's solution allowed patients to visit different offices, following the storm, with the confidence that physicians were making diagnoses and performing procedures with the most up-to-date information in hand," said Jon Walker, chief information officer for Cardiovascular Institute of the South. "The reliability and flexibility of BellSouth's data service instantly gave CIS options to effectively serve patients across a large area."
The network solution allows CIS to share diagnostic medical information gathered at one location to be viewed by physicians at other facilities. A physician may even view this information on his/her laptop while away from the office by accessing the network remotely. Each location also has access to essential business information, such as billing, scheduling and HR data.
The Network VPN solution allows CIS to make voice over IP (VoIP) calls across the data network, providing a converged communications environment for added operational and cost efficiencies. In addition, dedicated Internet access is shared by the headquarters location, the clinics and physician offices through the network. The Internet access is fully protected by a network-based firewall managed by BellSouth.
Many businesses have the challenge of linking multiple office locations that are broadly distributed to corporate resources. Each location often has specific network access requirements and, in the past, companies have had to self-integrate and manage these disparate networks across the organization.
BellSouth Managed Network VPN provides a managed, network-based solution and delivers full mesh connectivity and class of service to more efficiently route complex data applications across corporate networks. The solution is based on MPLS (Multi-protocol Label Switching), a technology that BellSouth recently announced will be used to provide an advanced nationwide data service in 2006.
"Businesses trust BellSouth as a preferred provider of premium data services, and this is never more important than during a crisis," said John Stuhrenberg, vice president - data product management, BellSouth. "Many BellSouth account teams worked around the clock during and immediately following Hurricane Katrina to ensure that customer networks were maintained or quickly rerouted according to specific needs."
As part of its restoration work, BellSouth teams worked closely with the state governments of Louisiana and Mississippi to ensure continuity of communications following the storm, as well as hospitals, transportation systems and other critical businesses in the private sector to aid in evacuation and relocation efforts.
For information about BellSouth data products for businesses, visit http://www.bellsouthlargebusiness.com.
About BellSouth Corporation
BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS) is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth has joint control and 40 percent ownership of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless voice and data provider with 51.6 million customers.
Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(R), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial-up and high-speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(R) and The Real
Yellow Pages(R).
BellSouth believes that diversity and fostering an inclusive environment are critical in maintaining a competitive advantage in today's global marketplace. More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com.
Source: PR Newswire
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