Transportation Infrastructure Firm
Our client is a transportation infrastructure firm that excels in transportation infrastructure, focusing on large-scale transit expansion.
Services Provided
Disaster Recovery, Networking, Virtualization, Managed Infrastructure, Telecom Solutions, Backup & Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity
Challenge
Our team’s primary challenge was a project entrusted to a third-party IT Managed Service provider, which failed to deliver the implementation even after being involved for 8+ months. With the deadline pressing, our Advanced Professional Services division at DNSnetworks was approached to facilitate and meet the limited time frame left. We were tasked with implementing a triple site high availability telecommunication core infrastructure in only two weeks. The challenge was further compounded by our restriction in gaining physical access to the sites, our limited knowledge of the internal network’s intricacies, and the pressure of delivering the project four days before its due date— a feat we managed to achieve.
This challenge had a stinging impact on the company’s operations, goals, and customers. However, leveraging our advanced knowledge in networking, virtualization, enterprise hardware, and our experience with large telecom companies, our professional services team has efficiently maintained the core telecommunication network for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.
The key factors contributing to this challenge were numerous. The limited knowledge of the existing network, unfamiliarity with the established procedures and policies enforced by the consortium, and lack of physical access to any of the sites and hardware posed significant hurdles. Additionally, we had to navigate through over 120 pages of documentation regarding the proposed design built by the previous IT vendor, which didn’t accurately reflect the current infrastructure. Previous attempts to address this issue were unsuccessful.
Despite these challenges, the principal objective was to implement the project within the short time frame given and to offer expert-level expertise to ensure a service uptime of 99.99% for the LRT Crosstown infrastructure, both of which aimed at ensuring the provision of critical services seamlessly.
Result
The primary outcome resulting from resolving these challenges is that the Crosstown LRT now has a fully automated, high-availability telecommunications network, diligently crafted and managed by the combined efforts of DNSnetworks and AllStream.
The results align seamlessly with the initial objectives set for the project. The DNSnetworks Pro Services team has a history of undertaking challenging assignments and tackling seemingly insurmountable odds——The Crosstown LRT project was no exception and served to solidify further our reputation for overcoming difficult odds and delivering exceptional outcomes. This project also delivered crucial learnings and insights for our team. We recognized the paramount importance of flawless documentation, particularly with disaster recovery build implementations, and honed our quality of service under high-pressure deadlines.
The success of the Crosstown LRT project has proven to influence the company's plans and strategies significantly. It is a testament and model for future telecommunications implementations, especially those involving multiple geographic configurations. Furthermore, our team has been able to leverage some of the lessons learned from this project to implement similar designs within our private cloud infrastructure, indicating how the success of this project reverberates across our broader organization and influences our ethos and approach to complex, large-scale network implementation projects.