Book printing group rolls out new high–performance network based on Brocade BigIron RX and Brocade FCX Series switches, increasing network resiliency and capacity for anticipated networking demands

Clays, an operating company of St Ives Plc, a leading UK print and marketing services group, produces more than 160 million books each year (50 percent of the UK’s entire paperback book production), including everything from copies of the Holy Bible to best sellers from authors such as Dan Brown. With more than 25,000 orders a year, Clays requires an “always–on” high–performance network to scale on–demand with influxes in book sales.

Since its formation more than 200 years ago, Clays has watched the publishing landscape evolve exponentially; last year Amazon reported that it sold more e–books than physical books for the first time. Nevertheless, the printing company still sees huge demand for its services, leading it to invest in the region of £7 million per annum on highly integrated printing and distribution solutions – enabling it to diversify, provide more client services and keep pace with a growing number and variety of orders. However, the existing network architecture was no longer able to keep pace with the growing requirements of Clays’ clients.

To meet this challenge, it has deployed Brocade® (Nasdaq: BRCD) BigIron RX Series and Brocade FCX Series switches as part of a major network refresh providing 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) performance while maintaining availability. The process was fulfilled by local Brocade partner, Vanix.

Jo Jennett, computer systems manager at Clays, commented: “Over the past few years the company has seen a dramatic increase in the level of digital file management, as well as on–demand printing.  Our typical turnaround per order is three to five days, which illustrates the importance of reliability and availability. Any downtime can have an immediate knock–on effect to production and such demand had placed significant pressure on the existing network infrastructure. That network was not designed with today’s workloads and the increasing IT dependency of the business in mind.  Total reliability had become essential to underpin the service offering to our customers and it was time to take action.”

Clays’ network had grown organically and supported business expansion very well over a number of years, but this disparate design brought with it challenges for future direction. With its on–demand print and deliver strategy, the company had to move to a network that was scalable, reliable and resilient.

“Our business has evolved to such an extent that it now includes the entire supply chain from production to distribution, all of which is totally dependent on IT. Network reliability is at the core of the business as customers connect through EDI [electronic data interchange] to place and confirm orders, right through to the warehouse and fulfilment,” added Jennett.

Following a competitive tender, Clays deployed Brocade BigIron RX Series and Brocade FCX Series switches as the foundation of the high–performance 10 GbE network. The Brocade BigIron RX Series of Layer 2/3 Ethernet switches has already delivered the desired resilience for Clays, future–proofing the network architecture and enabling the company to plan ahead with the confidence that the Brocade environment will support network growth and its continued evolution.

Jennett continued: “We selected the Brocade BigIron RX Series as it incorporates the latest advances in switch architecture, system resilience, quality of service and switch security, which set a new benchmark for us in terms of price/performance value, scalability and TCO. When combined with the Brocade FCX Series switches, that gave us the ideal solution for delivering new levels of performance and flexibility across our enterprise campus network. In addition, the support we received from Vanix during the deployment was exemplary; we didn’t have the in–house expertise and Vanix, together with Brocade, designed a network that perfectly met our requirements and ensured that the roll–out was problem–free. The network has been reliable and, for us, that is something new that we are delighted with.”

Marcus Jewell, Regional Director – UK/Ireland at Brocade commented: “We are delivering a unified network strategy by dramatically simplifying the network. For Clays, the imperative was to provide scalability and flexibility so that it had the opportunity to grow in whichever direction proved most valuable to it as a business. Thanks to a successful implementation, Clays is now able to face the challenges of the constantly evolving market, safe in the knowledge that it has a blueprint for the future.”

Product details

    Brocade BigIron RX Series
    http://www.brocade.com/products/all/switches/product–details/bigiron–rx–series/index.page

    Brocade FCX Series
    http://www.brocade.com/products/all/switches/product–details/fcx–series/index.page