Networking

A robust networking infrastructure

Vimta Labs wanted a robust secured networking and communication infrastructure to support its growth and with sufficient headroom to add applications in the future. By Mohd Shariff PA

Vimta Labs Limited was established in 1984 and is based in Hyderabad, India. The company provides contract research and testing services for clinical research, preclinical (animal) studies, clinical lab services and environmental assessments, and it offers analytical testing for a wide range of products. On its list of prominent customers, Vimta has six Fortune 500 companies and three of the world’s top-ten generic drug development companies.

Business challenges

Vimta wanted to establish itself as the leading provider of contract research services for the world’s top corporations, and its existing IT environment needed enhancement for it to support that goal. Vimta set out to create a new facility that would provide world-class IT infrastructure with leading-edge software applications and high-quality lab equipment for offering best-of-breed services. Additionally, Vimta needed to have proper controls for its processes, data security and audit trails so that its experiments would consistently meet the strict criteria that international customers have for outsourcing providers. Sireesh Chandra, Deputy Manager, IT, Vimta Labs Limited said, “Additionally we wanted to enhance our research and development program and for this we needed proper IT infrastructure in place.”

Compliance rears its head

At its new facility, Vimta wanted to implement a networking solution that would improve employee collaboration, reduce communication cost, allow users to access centralized information and enable compliance with the end customers’ legal, regulatory, patent and approval guidelines, such as the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). The company decided to go in for high quality network technology that would help facilitate collaboration across the structure of the company for its 541 employees—294 scientists and engineers, 22 PhDs, 17 doctors and 247support staff.

Chandra, said, “We deployed Cisco’s communication solutions at a new facility that boasts of state-of-the-art information technology infrastructure for providing best-of-breed services to the company.” Cisco provided a reliable networking platform for enhancing internal communications and information sharing across the organization.

The network solution

Cisco worked with its partner, IBM, to implement a network infrastructure that was logically divided into five broad categories such as switching, routing, security, IP telephony and wireless LAN.

The switching solution comprises two Cisco 6513 switches with Layer III Capable Supervisor Engine 720 and redundant power supplies. Chandra said, “These switches are configured with Gigabit Ethernet ports based on both Fiber and UTP for access connectivity. All internal and external networks will be connected to the switches by creating Virtual LANs.”

Similarly, the routing solution comprised of one Cisco 3845 Mid-Range enterprise class router that provides Internet and Inter-office (Intranet) WAN connectivity to the new premises of Vimta Labs. In addition, this router is configured with a Content Caching engine module to cache frequently accessed Internet content into the in-built 40 GB hard disk drive and access the Internet only for updates. The router is also configured with an analog modem module for Remote Access Server (RAS) functionality that can be used for providing PSTN dialup based remote access connectivity to the corporate network for the organization’s mobile executives. It has an inbuilt VPN accelerator card to facilitate secure encrypted VPN access to the corporate network.

The security setup consists of Cisco PIX firewalls in a redundant failover capable configuration at different segments in the network and Cisco Intrusion Detection System (IDS) for intrusion detection and prevention. The firewalls and IDS services module reside in the core switches and connect using Fiber and UTP based gigabit Ethernet connectivity respectively. The firewall has security policies set, based on which every incoming and outgoing packet is sniffed and any unauthorized access is prevented. The VPN/Security Management Software (VMS) delivers and manages security policies on the firewall and IDS. This software provides standard and customized network security reports to the management.

The IP Telephony Solution for Vimta Labs is based on the Cisco MCS Server with Cisco Call Manager software 4.1 for a thousand IP phone users. Since the network design is based on a centralized architecture, the IP Phones can connect anywhere on Vimta’s network using gateways or gatekeepers, including international locations. Cisco Unity 4.0 is deployed in the IP Telephony solution where it integrates with the Lotus Domino e-mail messaging server for providing voice and Unified Messaging feature. The IP telephony solution also has an audio conferencing facility and Cisco VT Advantage for point-to-point video call functionality.

The Wireless LAN is based on the IEEE 802.11g standard offering 54 Mbps throughput. The entire campus is equipped with Cisco 1200 series Wireless Access Points (WAP) positioned at strategic locations for providing Wireless LAN coverage at every nook and corner of the Vimta campus. The WAPs coupled with high gain antennas ensure coverage near the auditorium as well as the cafeteria. Advanced roaming configured on the WAPs, allows users to seamless switch from one WAP to another without losing connectivity.

The solution uses Cisco EAP-Fast technology, which allows users to securely connect to the backend infrastructure. EAP-FAST provides protection from a variety of network attacks, including man-in-the-middle, authentication forging, weak IV attack (AirSnort), packet forgery (replay attack), and dictionary attacks. EAP-FAST is based on 802.1x-based-standard with support available on a variety of operating systems.

Business value gained

Chandra said, “With our processes now running on state-of-the-art IT infrastructure, we have taken a significant step towards achieving our goal of being recognized among the Top Ten contract research and testing organizations in the world by 2010.” Vimta’s new facility is powered by Cisco’s network backbone and the wireless, security and IP telephony solutions have e-enabled their entire business functioning, thereby helping them offer world-class service standards to customers around the globe. With a robust and secure foundation in place, this IP-based network can now be scaled up to accommodate an increasing number of users and more applications can be added on as Vimta aligns its business functions along this common, converged architecture.

mohammed.shariff@expressindia.com