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The Welsh Assembly didn’t ask Logicalis for an MPLS IPVPN with Weighted Fair Queuing. They stated a need to securely connect together thousands of government sites with a mixture of broadband and Ethernet and to be able to prioritise some applications over others on that network. By the same token Logicalis needed a solution that was easy to implement and manage where sites could be added without complicated configurations and expensive routers. Griffin’s MPLS IPVPN offering met all of these requirements.

Real Deal

Logicalis is an international provider of integrated ICT solutions, delivering secure, converged computing and communications infrastructure and services. They provide the architecture, deployment, integration and management of networks and systems to deliver leading edge solutions that create value for their clients. Logicalis in partnership with Griffin recently won a £74 million, seven year contract to build and operate a country wide public sector broadband network.

The new Public Sector Broadband Aggregation (PSBA) network will allow organisations and agencies ranging from hospitals, universities, further education colleges, local government offices, GP surgeries, schools and libraries to achieve better value for money in their use of broadband communications, as well as increasing the services available to Welsh Public Sector organisations.

With the overriding aim of improving the efficient delivery of a whole range of services to millions of people across Wales, the new network expects to support 5500 public sites across Wales.

Tim Wadey, Director of Operations for PSBA at Logicalis says: "The strategic choice of Griffin as an ADSL partner was key to us being able to deliver differentiated services across the whole of Wales. The bespoke solution for the PSBA network closely met the end-user requirements."

John Dawson Managing Director at Griffin added: "Our aim is to help Partners to be successful under their own brand and we supported Logicalis every step of the way to ensure they won the Welsh Assembly deal. Griffin’s focus is to develop products that help our Partners to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, protect future revenues and build long lasting, profitable relationships with their customers. We are proud to have developed technology that enables Welsh public sector organisations to save money and to deliver useful services over our IP network."

Developing with the needs of the market

Griffin has built a solid reputation in the channel with their 'ISP in a Box' product and their 400+ white label Partners are not shy in letting them know where to focus their product development. Michael Cox, Head of Product Development at Griffin explains it like this:

"In an industry where vendors change their sales strategies regularly the channel is understandably wary and it can take some time to gain their trust. At Griffin Internet we are fortunate to have quite a mixture of Partners that trust us with information about their customers and who work closely with us to develop new products. We have to be mindful of the fact that once a product is on MOPS it could be simultaneously ordered by all of our Partners and so everything has to be thoroughly tested through an alpha and beta stage before being released. The more adventurous of our Partners participate in our beta launches, however our experience is that for most people it is more important that the processes and products work than to be selling a product a few weeks ahead of the competition. Griffin has grown up and gone are the days of rushing products to market just for a bit of PR and then having to mop up the mess afterwards. We are very excited about the first release of IPVPN and we have even more exciting features planned in release two."

New Opportunities

There are a number of factors driving demand for virtual private networks.

• The growth in Terminal Server and Citrix means that more employees working from home need to access a company’s internal network.
• A gradual withdrawal of ISDN services means that there are around a million exchange lines in retail outlets out there that need to move from dial-up to IP.
• An increased awareness of terrorist attack and infection (e.g. Bird Flu) is causing companies to implement measures allowing remote working for all employees.

How has this demand been serviced until now?

The major telcos have offered MPLS solutions for a few years now but these have been leased circuit centred and typically very expensive. The most popular alternative where broadband is required has been internet-based VPNs that use SSL or IPsec to create secure tunnels through the internet.

The problem with this approach is that it is very labour intensive both to install and to manage and most resellers do not have the internal resource to cope. For example a 50 site fully meshed internet-based VPN will require 2500 separate configurations and each time an end user is added or taken away the entire network needs to be reconfigured. Add to this the cost of firewalls and specialist routers and it becomes too much of a risk for most resellers to take on.

What is the alternative?

Griffin’s IPVPN has all of the intelligence centred on their core network so that by adding an end user on MOPS (Griffin’s provisioning and management portal), they are automatically added to the VPN. There are no complicated configurations required and the end user needs nothing more than a £30 router which can be pre-set by Griffin and despatched to the end user for them to plug-in themselves.

Furthermore the customer is easily able to mix leased lines with broadband on the network and use Engineered Broadband® to prioritise real-time applications like voice and video.

Building long term profitable recurring revenue in your own name

Demand in the market is high and there are super-profits to be made particularly when the reseller is up against one of the telcos pitching an expensive MPLS solution. Gross margins of 50-60% are not uncommon and a 200 site IPVPN can be worth around £200,000 a year.

As with everything Griffin preaches white-label. If the customer only ever sees your brand you will build not only loyalty but the value of your company overall. When you come to realise some capital from your labours you will find that potential acquirers attach very little value to commissions paid by third parties where the end customer is ‘owned’ by them, not you. In fact some will discount the value of a potential acquisition because, in these changing times, they see a third-party supplier as a potential competitor.

Make use of 'Virtual Experts'

A specialist resource to qualify and close opportunities is expensive and resellers often cannot justify speculatively recruiting the sales consultants and technical pre-sales engineers needed for IPVPN opportunities.

Griffin is strictly channel-only but all their Partner Managers have experience working on big ticket deals and they get very involved with training sales people and helping to identify and close opportunities with Partners. Furthermore the white label ethos extends to Griffin’s pre-sales engineers who are happy to act as your ‘Virtual Expert’ and join your bid team in front of the customer.

As Rob Murdoch from Titan puts it:

"Like Griffin, Titan is growing rapidly and acquiring new resellers all the time. We need suppliers that are responsive to our needs and can pick up some of the functions for which we just cannot justify dedicated resource. Griffin’s commitment to automation is key to managing large numbers of customers and they are always there when required with pre-sales technical support and training for our staff and our resellers. Griffin’s investment in their network and technical innovation is important in keeping us and our resellers ahead of the competition."

For further information about Griffin’s MPLS IPVPN solution please call free on 0808 156 6420 or email vpnexpert@griffin.com.

Source: Comms Business May.