Ip.Glass helps Pacific National enhance security and halve networking costs

Network security services provider Ip.Glass deployed a large Fortinet solution that significantly enhanced network security, performance and reliability for Australia's largest private rail operator, Pacific National.

The project was recognised as the best in the Networking Evolution category at the 2023 CRN Impact Awards last month.

Ip.Glass was tapped by Pacific National to deploy Fortinet Secure SD-Branch and Secure SD-WAN solutions to replace its existing private multiprotocol label switching network.

Spanning 86 sites with over 5,000 endpoints, the project enabled Pacific National to modernise its transportation management system and achieve improved security, visibility and employee wellbeing in remote locations.

The company has also halved its annual networking costs.

The project has enhanced performance, redundancy and resilience, and has enabled connectivity to new sites in a matter of days, rather than months.

The highly redundant solution, which includes multiple active-active Internet links to each site, has translated into a major reduction of network outages.

It has also allowed Pacific National to deploy redundant connections and serve Wi-Fi with higher bandwidth and faster Internet speeds.

In the event of a network outage, Pacific National can now rely on a robust 4G connection to ensure uninterrupted connectivity.

Remote locations can benefit from the Starlink satellite connection, which provides low latency, high-speed connection in areas not serviceable by the NBN, fibre or 4G.

“The SD-WAN project was an absolute joy, working with Ip.Glass and Fortinet, giving our engineers new technology to play with, and being able to modernise the technology across our whole network landscape from a data centre and site perspective,” Pacific National's information technology infrastructure manager Steve Carroll said.

"We see Ip.Glass as an extension of our IT team; their engineers really understand our business and our network, they came to every site with us, and they’ve shown a passion for it."