Case Study: Dalpa International

Company Profile: Formed in 1995, Dalpa is one of the UK's fastest growing freight forwarding companies handling over 60,000 container shipments per year worldwide.

Headquartered in Leeds with a 20,000 square foot, 26 loading bay warehouse, Dalpa has three other UK offices, in Glasgow, Manchester and London, and partner agents throughout Europe.

Dalpa's central computer is an AS/400 Model 720 in Leeds, supporting WAN data transfer from legacy twinax devices - printers and green screen terminals - and PCs at the three remote sites. These links were by SDLC leased lines using Perle 494E controllers. The three BT Kilostream lines (two 9.6Kbps and a 19.2Kbps link to London) were costing £14,000 p.a. and with increased traffic, average response times had slipped to over a second.

Problem to solve: To reduce telecom costs and improve response times whilst retaining the twinax devices and infrastructure in the remote offices. Also needed a new network that could be expanded easily on a fixed cost basis as Dalpa opens new offices in the UK and Europe.

Dalpa also wanted to open their network to their European partners - most of whom are also AS/400 based - and have the option to implement VoIP facilities. Security was therefore an additional issue for consideration.

Product Installed: Three BOS e-Twin@x Controllers at the remote sites, a BOS SECURIT-e server and Sonicwall software in Leeds.


Why Dalpa chose BOS e-Twin@x Controller:

  1. "I wanted to get rid of the slow and expensive leased line network, but on the other, I did not want to throw out the remote twinax devices and infrastructure which was all working perfectly.
    So I went to see CE Services, the Midrange IBM computer and networking specialists in Warrington. To my surprise they thoroughly agreed with my 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' objectives, and described how BOS had developed their new e-Twin@x Controllers specifically to bridge the twinax and TCP/IP environments.
    They convinced me that by using the e-Twin@x Controllers and 64K ISDN links to the Internet, coupled with BT's Surftime package, I could cut my telecom costs by at least 50%, and since the BOS controllers cost a little over £2,000 a time, this meant pay back in less than a year."
  2. "One of the greatest time savers is BOS' Twinax network administrator, which enables me to re-configure the e-Twin@x Controllers remotely, via a browser. I can even sit at home on a wet Sunday afternoon and re-set individual ports in any of the remote offices: Something I could never do with the Perle controllers."

Future Plans
"The simple set up, remote configuration and fixed communication cost benefits of the e-Twin@x Controller solution will be a distinct advantage as we open new offices in the UK and, possibly, on the Continent.

"We also plan to encourage our European partners to take the same approach so that they can just as easily link into our network. And we will be able to grant access to our customers, giving them an on-line, real-time enquiry facility which could subsequently lead to a fully fledged e-Commerce capability via our Website.

"Routing telephone calls over the Internet is another serious consideration. The BOS TeleLynk VoIP gateway product has been demonstrated to me and I can only say that I was amazed at the quality of voice derived from such a small bandwidth, just 4 to 6 Kbps.

"So we could easily implement VoIP links to our remote offices and our European partners without any degradation to our new data network. And when we bring our customers onto our e-Business Website I can see a considerable benefit to adding the human touch by using the BOS e-TeleLynk gateway to enable them to instigate a phone call over the same Internet link," David Tomlinson concluded.

Contacts:
David Tomlinson
Dalpa International Ltd.
Leeds, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 113 271 2777
E-mail: edp@dalpa.co.uk
Website: www.dalpa.co.uk

Mark Ralph
CE Services Ltd.
Warrington, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1925 445774
E-mail: m.Ralph@ceservices.co.uk
Website: www.ceservices.co.uk

Julie Batchelor
BOS Ltd.
BOS House, Meridian East
Meridian Business Park
Leicester, LE19 1WZ, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 116 282 0600
Fax: +44 (0) 116 282 0601
E-mail: julie.batchelor@boseurope.com
Website: www.bosweb.com

Customer comments:

"Looking back I must admit I really did want to have my cake and eat it," admits David Tomlinson, IT Manager at Dalpa International. "On the one hand I wanted to get rid of the slow and expensive leased line network, but on the other, I did not want to throw out the remote twinax devices and infrastructure which was all working perfectly.

"And since the installation, a raft of other benefits have come to fruition. First and foremost, with up to eight times the bandwidth, response times are lightening quick - measured in milliseconds, not seconds.

"Secondly, being an Internet based VPN, our employees may access the e-Twin@x Controllers and the AS/400 from anywhere - all they need is a laptop and Internet connection.

"Being permanently on line to the Web has also accrued some unexpected cost savings, not least over £1,000 p.a. in calls to 192 telephone enquiries - which we now get via the Internet for free. And postal costs have been cut dramatically through the increased use of e-mail.

"Meanwhile, back at the head office, CE Services have resolved our security concerns by installing a Sonicwall firewall between our local IP network and the Internet connection, and by using BOS' SECURIT-e server to encrypt all the data traffic to and from the AS/400."

Click here to read what else this customer and others are saying about the e-Twin@x Controller!