WJ Moncrief deploys Nortel products for Kalgoorlie remote mining networks

Shaun Fessey, senior IS coordinator, KCGM said the company manages and operates the ‘Super Pit’, producing up to 850,000 ounces of gold each year. At 3.2 kilometres in length, 1.4 kilometres in width and more than 450 metres deep, it is also the biggest open pit gold mine in Australia. The remoteness from metropolitan centres combined with the tough outback conditions typical of Australia's mining regions make it paramount that sensitive communications equipment be particularly hardy against failure, as well as easy to manage and maintain.

“A remote operation like ours brings with it a number of challenges when it comes to running a fail-safe computer network, because highly skilled engineers are not easy to come by and replacement parts can take several days or more to source,” said Shaun Fessey, senior IS coordinator, KCGM.

According to Fessey, its previous network didn’t give KCGM any of the security or survivability features it was looking for. He believes Nortel’s solution supports the growth of the company for the next five years and also gives KCGM a simple upgrade path to new technology like IP telephony and unified communications, which it’s now considering.

Mark Fioretto, general manager, Enterprise Solutions A/NZ at Nortel said the solution is being sold and implemented by Nortel nPower channel partner WJ Moncrieff. It includes a combination of Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 5530s for the network core and Nortel ERS 5520 switches at the network edge.

“In this challenging remote environment, the switches feature Nortel's Split Multi Link Trunking (SMLT) architecture, which eliminates single points of failure on the network by giving each switch multiple paths to route network traffic. The network also features Nortel's Secure Network Access (SNA) technology that manages network access based on individual user profiles as opposed to physical devices, which prevents rogue devices from accessing the network without the proper user authentication,” said Fioretto.

Nortel's data network switches have recently been validated by two independent third-party reports from InfoTech and the Tolly Group, he said.