Express Newspapers Group is using a high-bandwidth
private IP network to share data and applications with its New York
office. It also using the network to support the North American
edition of OK magazine, which was launched 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 2005, 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.
Express Newspapers is also using the network to run PeopleSoft
Financials, an advertising application, videoconferencing, and to
synchronise data between its London datacentre and disaster
recovery centre in Broughton, Scotland.
The MCI service replaces an SMDS (Switched Multi-megabit Data
Service ) from BT. BT's plan to discontinue SMDS in March 2006
forced the publisher to find an alternative network, said Paul
White, IT director at Express Newspapers.
The company evaluated services from BT, Cable & Wireless and
MCI. It chose 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.
The publisher 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 corporate 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. It used broadband network
links from both BT and MCI to transfer data between the two
buildings during the move.
The publisher is currently carrying out a Windows 2003 and
Exchange Server 2003 migration, and aims to install Microsoft's
Active Directory next year.