JB Technologies – Success Story

Garment Center Company Having Difficulty Implementing Business Continuity Solution

JB Technologies network redundancy and disaster recovery solution saves the day!

"I want to let your organization know how very pleased I am with the work done to date. I spent 6 months with a technical consultant who was trying to make this work with hardware that just wouldn't do the job. Thus far, JB Technologies, has accomplished what I asked for in a relatively short time and with the results that were promised. Being able to deliver what you sell is the sign of great technical consulting services. That it is exactly what we wanted and I feel we received. Bravo!!"
"Thank you, I really appreciate it."
- Mr. Adam Eisenschtat - Manager of Information Services - Jump Apparel Company

Challenge:
An apparel company in New York City, JUMP Apparel Company, was looking for network and email redundancy while implementing a business continuity solution. The company had two locations, each with independent Internet connections connected via a fractional T-1. They required full redundancy for their Internet, T-1 and mail systems with automatic failover.

Over a six month period, the apparel company had tasked another solution provider to design and implement the redundancy solution. The solution provider was unsuccessful in their implementation efforts and unfortunately created additional network problems as a result of their efforts. With a significant portion of the budget spent and without the ability to resolve the current network performance issues, the company decided to bring in a network design specialist and hired JB Technologies.

JB Technologies "Technology Alchemy" Solution:
Within the first day, JB Technologies restored the network communications and completed an assessment of the network redundancy requirements. A VPN was installed between the two sites to achieve T-1 redundancy and the routing protocols were set up to favor the T-1 over the VPN. The mail redundancy was achieved via an inexpensive Windows Server remote data redundancy software named Double Take.

The Internet redundancy presented more of a challenge because the company did not want to purchase routers capable of BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). The existing firewall did not provide EIGRP, RIP or OSPF capabilities. To solve this problem, JB Technologies engineers used directed unicast RIP packets making the inside routers and Internet routers peers - separated by PIX firewalls. This allowed the network to automatically failover without administrative intervention.

Originally, the apparel company contacted Cisco requesting a redundant Internet solution. Cisco informed the apparel company the only way to implement a redundant Internet solution was to purchase additional equipment to create a tunnel between the Internet and inside routers (to pass the routing information and data through). This solution was not suitable since it did not provide the level of security required. The PIX firewalls needed to provide stateful inspection. Stateful inspection firewalls look for data patterns or behaviors that may represent a potential or actual "hacker" threat. In order for stateful inspection firewalls to work they must see the raw traffic in both directions (no asymmetrical routing). If JB Technologies were to encapsulate the traffic inside of a tunnel, as Cisco suggested, the stateful inspection engine on the PIX box would not see the traffic, only the tunnel itself. In conclusion, if data were tunneled through the firewall stateful inspection would not work. JB Technologies realized the challenge would be even greater when Cisco stated an alternative solution was not feasible.

To complete the redundancy implementation using common implementation methods would have cost the apparel company an additional $100,000.00 in networking equipment and software. Unfortunately, a majority of the budget for this project had been depleted and additional capital was not an option. The challenge was determining a way to use the existing networking equipment more inefficiently and to create a viable network and email redundancy solution. Regardless, JB Technologies accepted the task.

JB Technologies replicated the components of the apparel company’s network in the RCA testing lab (reliability, certification assurance) and created a way to implement the network redundancy without adding new equipment, thus eliminating the need for any additional financial investment. Additionally, the solution was installed at the company’s location during normal business hours with zero percent downtime. Once installed the network/email redundancy solution was fully operational.
 

Solving the unsolvable, delivering the impossible, implementing tomorrow’s solutions today!