Case Study: KWH Pipe
StoneGate Multi-Link™ secures the network connections of KWH Pipe
KWH Pipe is one of the world leaders in the production and development of plastic pipe systems with production units in Europe, Southeast Asia and North America. KWH Pipe manufactures plastic pipes for various applications such as water, sewage, gas and irrigation purposes. KWH Pipe also develops technology and sells equipment to complement its core operations, and carries out projects involving the design, planning and installation of pipe systems, including turnkey projects. The traditional family company relies on Stonesoft’s experience in securing their network connections
KWH Pipe is a wholly owned subsidiary of the KWH Group, which has operations in 12 countries.
The management and IT centre of the company are located in Vaasa, Finland. In 2006 the consolidated
annual turnover of the group was EUR 260 million and it employed 1370 people.
As a business, the KWH Group goes right back to the 1920s and 30s. The Group was formed in 1984, when Oy Keppo Ab bought up the half of Oy Wiik & Höglund Ab’s shares held by the Wiik family. The production of KWH Pipe is based on Movex Java. Built on the IBM eServer iSeries 810 appliances, the whole system is located in Vaasa, from where it is used by the other units. As the operations management system covers the entire business process chain from the initial order to profitability calculations, the company has wanted to secure the connections between the centre and production units with the most advanced technology available.
Pen and paper are not enough any more
The whole production planning and other production processes rely on automatic data processing
systems. If the connections go down, production does not stop immediately, but long breaks cannot
be afforded.
A couple of hours break in the connection is not critical yet, but if the break would last for twenty-four hours, it would cause major inconveniences in our ability to deliver and thus have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. We simply cannot take down orders of several tens of pages with pen and paper."
A couple of years ago, the IT staff of KWH Pipe realised that the connections provided by the
service provider did not meet the company’s business needs. The amount of data was constantly
growing and KWH Pipe wanted to mimimize the risk of connection downtime.
"We felt that the leased line was cumbersome and expensive, so we started looking for
alternatives. By chance we run into Stonesoft’s Stone- Gate™ firewall and the Multi-Link™ feature
that comes with it, recalls Pihlajamäki.
After KWH had thoroughly evaluated the product and discussed their needs with the Stonesoft
experts, they were convinced of Multi-Link’s capability to guarantee high availability and load
balancing in their Internet and VPN traffic. The company also appreciated StoneGate’s excellent
price-performance-ratio.
We evaluated several other alternatives, but the other appliances with comparable features would have been oversized and too expensive for our needs. Also the agility and ease of use of StoneGate were important selection criteria for us. I would say that Stonesoft’s product is a couple of years ahead of the competition."With StoneGate Multi-Link KWH Pipe is no longer dependent from one ISP. This makes organising bidding rounds and, if necessary, changing ISPs to find the best and most cost-efficient solution considerably easier.
- Rauno Pihlajamäki, IT Manager of KWH Pipe
Usability is the key
As an experienced IT professional, Pihlajamäki knows to appreciate the ease of use and management of StoneGate and Multi-Link, both from the point of view of the IT management and the end user. The use of VPN is a good example.Our previous VPN solution was so complicated and difficult to use that our staff would not even try to connect to the company network from business trips. This was an unnecessary burden to our helpdesk. Now creating a connection via StoneGate VPN is so easy that all of our about hundred VPN users can do it effortlessly when travelling
From the point of view of administration, StoneGate Management Center is of high quality and easy to use. The user interface is visually easy to understand and the system delivers reports and other data in a clear and understandable format. Also the integration to various VPN systems provided by partners has been straightforward. StoneGate effortlessly covers the necessary connection parameters.
– Also software updates can be done smoothly and without maintenance downtime, thanks to the centralized management, praises Pihlajamäki.
Cable out, cable in
StoneGate’s excellent usability manifested itself once again as the installation to KWH Pipe’s Vasa office took only two days. In the first installation, KWH Pipe was assisted by an expert from Stonesoft, but after that Pihlajamäki could take care of everything by himself.– The installation was done like “unplug the cable and plug it back in.” After the first installation, I took the administration training, after which I have done the fail-overs by myself. Within a year from the start of the project, all our local offices were included in the system.
Pihlajamäki praises Stonesoft’s professional training and customer service.
– The Stonesoft staff has been very professional throughout the training, installation and customer support. They are able to see the customer’s needs and very friendly. You usually get an answer from their customer support immediately or by the end of the day at the very latest.
StoneGate Multi-Link paid itself back in two years
From the investment point of view, KWH’s invesment in StoneGate Multi-Link has been extremely profitable.The appliance has paid itself back in about two years as saved ISP expenses. Now it is already making money for us."
Currently KWH Pipe is using StoneGate at five locations and the sixth is being
tested, as the office in Sweden will be integrated in the system. In the Vaasa
office, the company uses the clustered solution of Multi-Link. The connections are provided by two
different operators, Vaasan Läänin Puhelin and Elisa. The connections to the remote offices are
provided by Elisa.
– In Vaasa, we have two 10 Mbps connections, and the remote connections are 4,5 Mbps. Thanks to Multi-Link, now we have more than ten times faster connection speeds, compared to the previous leased line connections, Pihlajamäki recalls.
In addition to StoneGate Multi-Link and VPN, KWH Pipe has also implemented the StoneGate IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and IDS (Intrusion Detection System).
– StoneGate is easily scalable according to our needs. For example, first we implemented the lighter version of the IPS and now, as our demands have grown, we update it to the next version. In addition, we are building a double connection to our Ulvila production site this year, says Pihlajamäki.
KWH Pipe is not yet using StoneGate Multi-Link in their US or APAC units. However, the possibility has been considered.
– Based on our positive experiences, we might well take StoneGate into use there, too, Pihlajamäki says.