Vital Energi
Vital Energi provides sustainable and viable energy solutions to a range of public and private clients, designing and implementing efficient energy systems that are flexible, futureproof and deliver real savings in both energy use and cost.
Vital Energi provides a complete energy solution, from design and implementation to asset and energy management. The company was founded in the early 1980s and has installed creative energy solutions for some of the UK’s highest profile developments, including Manchester’s MediaCityUK and the King’s Cross development in London.
The challenge
Reliable connectivity is hugely important to Vital Energi’s day-to-day operations. The company needs a consistent and robust connection between its Blackburn headquarters and regional offices in London and Glasgow. It needs to remotely monitor the energy use and requirements of its implemented solutions at sites across the country. And it needs to securely move large and complex digital designs and blueprints around its network. The size and sophistication of its connectivity requirement, along with the absolute need for security, led its stretched IT department to talk to Zen.
The solution
Zen’s solution includes a number of important elements. At its heart is a managed MPLS IP VPN (a high quality, high performance virtual private network) to securely link Vital Energi to its remote onsite monitoring equipment, a network of ADSL lines for reliable internet connectivity and dedicated Ethernet leased lines to guarantee bandwidth, stability and speed. Vital Energi is also utilising Zen’s colocation service and managed AWS cloud services for data security and the safe archiving of important documents.
The benefits
Vital Energi now has a robust, flexible and scalable networking and connectivity solution that fits the needs of its growing business, replacing an increasingly inadequate legacy network. Its unified communications are proactively monitored by Zen, leaving the company’s in-house team to focus on providing better solutions for its customers. Zen’s secure MPLS IP VPN solution allows Vital to better monitor its energy centre equipment, giving it greater insight into the efficiency of its solutions and early warning of any issues that might affect energy supply. The scalability of Zen’s network means new sites can be quickly and easily connected to the system.
“We’re an expanding business and that ability of the network to expand with us was essential,” says Jon Woan, IT operations manager at Vital Energi. “Creating and managing private networks between our sites was time consuming, so to be able to pass that role
**"We chose Zen because of the company's breadth of knowledge, not just in broadband connectivity but in the range of services it can layer on top. Zen also does the basics very well. If we ever need to ring tech support they invariably get what the problem is and deal with it. That's invaluable for a business like ours."
- Jon Woan, IT Operations Manager, Vital Energi**