Cisco Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution 4.1 Information Guide
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Challenge
The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) protects the skies over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
(KSA), providing the first line of defense and supporting military forces. As one of the
largest air forces in the region, it plays a major role in the Middle East and is renowned
as the leader in technology innovation within the Ministry of Defence.
In 2007, the RSAF embarked upon a journey to realign its technology with next-
generation warfare strategy. Prior to this, IT services had evolved organically over
time, which had led to the creation of multiple infrastructures and diverse technical
teams with overlapping skills and responsibilities.
These siloed networks lacked the features, scalability, and integration capabilities
to support new IP-based systems. This fragmented IT approach compounded the
situation by forcing the RSAF to build more physically separated infrastructures
adjacent to each other to support individual projects or applications. Moreover, these
limitations resulted in a significant challenge for RSAF operations and national security.
If a site went down, it could result in the loss of vital feeds and other communications,
in turn prompting the RSAF to initiate unnecessary IT and business operations that
could last for days.
As the RSAF grew and started to move everything to IP, new projects and systems
were unable to utilize any of the existing IT environments. This situation led to:
•
(KSA), providing the first line of defense and supporting military forces. As one of the
largest air forces in the region, it plays a major role in the Middle East and is renowned
as the leader in technology innovation within the Ministry of Defence.
In 2007, the RSAF embarked upon a journey to realign its technology with next-
generation warfare strategy. Prior to this, IT services had evolved organically over
time, which had led to the creation of multiple infrastructures and diverse technical
teams with overlapping skills and responsibilities.
These siloed networks lacked the features, scalability, and integration capabilities
to support new IP-based systems. This fragmented IT approach compounded the
situation by forcing the RSAF to build more physically separated infrastructures
adjacent to each other to support individual projects or applications. Moreover, these
limitations resulted in a significant challenge for RSAF operations and national security.
If a site went down, it could result in the loss of vital feeds and other communications,
in turn prompting the RSAF to initiate unnecessary IT and business operations that
could last for days.
As the RSAF grew and started to move everything to IP, new projects and systems
were unable to utilize any of the existing IT environments. This situation led to:
•
A lack of collaboration and integration
•
Redundant and under-utilized systems with duplicated functions in multiple silos
•
Duplicated staff and administration for each silo
•
Inability to standardize
•
Inefficient utilization of space, cooling, power, and service provider capabilities
Customer Case Study
Royal Saudi Air Force consolidates IT infrastructure with new Cisco network to improve operations,
reduce cost, and easily and quickly launch new services
Customer Name:
Royal Saudi Air Force
Industry:
Defense
Location:
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Number of Employees:
20,000
Challenge
• Maintain critical communications links
• Reduce organizational complexity and cost
• Deliver new support services
• Reduce organizational complexity and cost
• Deliver new support services
Solution
• Service Oriented Architecture featuring
private self-managed MPLS intelligent
infrastructure based on Cisco IP NGN and
Borderless Network design
infrastructure based on Cisco IP NGN and
Borderless Network design
• Cisco Network Strategy and Architecture
Services for workshops and network
design services
design services
Results
• Service provisioning times cut from months
to minutes
• Downtime reduced from days to seconds
• New network has near permanent stability
• New network has near permanent stability
due to almost zero routing updates
• Trouble tickets down by 80 percent, and
power consumption lowered by 40 percent
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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