Virtual Network Solution for Alcopa Car Distribution (Alcadis)

Alcadis is a subsidiary of Alcopa and is in charge of distributing cars of various brands. Alcopa is the holding of the Moorkens family and is mainly known as an importer of Asian car and motorbike makes. The family has been operating in the automotive distribution and retail sector for more than sixty years and has a presence in various markets and countries.

Alcopa offers its automotive customers in these various countries additional tailor-made services – such as insurance, leasing, maintenance contracts and parts – while developing a one-stop-shopping concept in several European countries. This concept is mainly aimed at offering an extensive array of products and services, which are closely associated with selling cars, in one distribution point. One of the biggest priorities of Alcopa is the development of a long-term collaboration with their customers.

In the frame of an extensive high availability project, Alcadis chose to set up a new data centre, where among other things Alcadis's IT services could be consolidated and centralized. Due to the virtualized server environment, Ferranti opted for a virtualized network solution, in consultation with the customer, using a redundant 6500 chassis and Cisco’s VSS (Virtual Switching System) technology. The VSS 1440 offers stack possibilities for chassis solutions, so-called backbone switches. One benefit is the fact that the entire solution is considered as one component with one IP address, meaning one routing request can be shared. That way, Spanning-Tree is definitely a thing of the past, and the solution offers very high performance. This switch configuration is equipped with 10 Gigabit Ethernet and has a bandwidth of 1.44 Terabits per second. Operational management has also been simplified, as several Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches can be centrally managed from one point.