The Express Newspapers Group is using a fast,
high-bandwidth private Internet Protocol (IP) network to share data
and applications with its New York and other offices, and to
support the North American launch of OK! magazine in
September.
The network between Express Newspapers’ London and New York
offices uses two separate sets of cables and routers for business
continuity purposes.
It is due to be rolled out across nine additional UK sites by
the end of the year, and five more European sites in early
2006.
The network, from MCI, has sufficient bandwidth to transfer
large, image-heavy PDF files between offices and across continents.
The company is also using the network to run Peoplesoft Financials;
as well as an advertising application, and videoconferencing; and
to synchronise data between its London data centre and disaster
recovery centre in Broughton, Scotland.
The MCI service replaces a Switched Multi-megabit Data Service
(SMDS) from BT. BT’s plan to discontinue the SMDS service next
March forced Express Newspapers to find an alternative network,
said Paul White, IT director at Express Newspapers.
The publisher evaluated services from BT, C&W and MCI,
deciding on MCI because it was already providing voice services,
and came up with a competitively priced package.
One of the challenges for Express Newspapers was grappling with
the technicalities of replacing Appletalk, a networking technology
from Apple, which was integrated into the BT SMDS network, and used
on 700 Apple Macs across the sites.
Express Newspapers is now planning to give its 200 freelance
journalists, mainly based in the US, access to MCI's Global Remote
Access system, which will allow them to access their systems
securely.
Express Newspapers publishes The Daily Express, Daily Star and
OK! magazine. It moved its London headquarters last year from one
side of the River Thames to the other, using broadband network
links from both BT and MCI to transfer data between the two
buildings during the move.
Express Newspapers is in the process of carrying out a Windows
2003 and Exchange Server 2003 migration, and aims to install
Microsoft’s Active Directory next year.