Case Study
Essar Group deploys secure Wi-Fi The multinational conglomerate uses Cisco WLAN to provide seamless connectivity to employees and guests By Vinita Gupta
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he Essar Group is a leading player in the steel, oil & gas, power, communications, shipping ports, construction and minerals sectors. With operations in more than 20 countries across five continents, the group employs a workforce of 70,000 people and has nearly 26 offices across India. Being a group with diverse interests and wide-spread operations, managing IT security and strategy and Internet is a gigantic task. Essar Group’s main challenge was to enable secure connection for meetings and discussions between employees, who were travelling, and their colleagues in office. Another key objective of the group was to ensure secure and seamless access at the office premises for VIP visitors and promoters. Essar Group’s concern was also to provide seamless Internet connectivity to 3,500 BlackBerry users and tablet and laptop users. Although, the company had implemented wireless LAN across five of its offices earlier, it was unable to meet these needs. Typical challenges in the existing architecture included: l Lack of standardization on wireless l Improper security framework l Role-based access control for users could not be provided l Unavailability of single sign-on for users l Secure guest access was not implemented l Integration with handheld devices was not feasible The impact of these security concerns on the business was huge and there was an urgent need to implement a solution at the earliest. Thus, Essar was seeking a Wi-Fi infrastructure, along with requisite security measures to overcome the challenges that its employees and visitors were facing.
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“A secure, seamless, wireless solution has enabled mobility to a great extent and has removed the barriers of wired connectivity for users”
Jayantha Prabhu
Chief Technology Officer, Essar Group
ADOPTION OF WIRELESS NETWORK
The group started using a Cisco Layer 3 network with 3-tier architecture at its premises, as well as deployed Cisco Light Weight Access Point Solution comprised of WLAN Controller 5508 and Cisco Aironet 1242 and 1252 as access points. In addition, it configured Cisco WCS for the management of WLAN infrastructure and its security policies. The group installed four Cisco WLAN controllers at its corporate offices and plant sites, as well as installed remote location primary controllers at corporate offices. Apart from this, Essar created five virtual area networks (VLANs) for WLAN on core software, along with one for the management of network WLAN. Each of the WLANs has different user access levels for Essar employees, guests and BlackBerry users.
BENEFITS AT A GLANCE Ease of administration improved by 80 percent
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End-user productivity increased by 60 percent
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User satisfaction goes up by 70 percent
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Ease of access to top-notch technology advancements improved by 80 percent
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Today, more than 200 tablets used by various Essar employees at the corporate headquarters and other offices depend on the Cisco Wi-Fi solution for remote Internet access.
BUSINESS RESULTS
The implementation of the Cisco WLAN solution has enabled Essar to provide a seamless, ubiquitous, simplified access combined with requisite security to its employees and visiting guests on a single Wi-Fi infrastructure. The high point of the implementation is that the solution can be integrated with laptops, BlackBerry phones, iPhones, iPods, etc. “A secure, seamless, wireless solution has enabled mobility to a great extent and has removed the barriers of wired connectivity for users at Essar,” states Jayantha Prabhu, Chief Technology Officer, Essar Group.
FUTURE PLANS
Today, Essar Group’s eight offices in India are using wireless connectivity. The company has now decided to extend the project footprint across most of its group locations in India and globally. Soon the company is planning to circulate the policy, wherein the employees can bring their own devices to office. u Vinita Gupta vinita.gupta@ubm.com
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