Networking Success

Electro Scientific Industries (ESI), headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with 11 other sites in the U.S. and across the globe, designs and builds sophisticated manufacturing tools for the worldwide electronics and semiconductor industries. To handle rapid growth in the company's user population and support bandwidth-hungry applications-- such as enterprise resource planning and networked computer-aided design (CAD)--ESI leverages Cisco solutions, creating a fully networked enterprise across the globe.

"Our network makes it possible and practical to achieve the promise of the ERP system. The Cisco networking equipment makes it feasible to do everything we want to do."

Chuck Lewis
Information System Manager

Challenge
ESI's enterprise resource planning (ERP) application required a fast, reliable, secure wide-area network (WAN) that spanned the organization, reaching into every corner and process. In addition, the new computer-aided design CAD application regularly produces files ranging in size from 50 to 100 megabytes, severely straining local server and backbone links. It also creates the need for higher bandwidth to the desktop. ESI needed to scale performance and ensure reliability at the workgroup, backbone, and WAN levels simultaneously. And because the company's IT resources and staff were short on time, the company also needed to reduce network complexity and deploy solutions that could be installed and operated without IT intervention in sites scattered across three continents.

Solution
ESI deployed Cisco solutions, including a Cisco Catalyst 5505 multilayer switch at the center of the campus backbone. The switch provides fully switched service within work- groups, with dedicated 10-Mbps links to high-demand desktops using the Catalyst 2900 XL and 100-Mbps Fast Ethernet links to servers. ESI also deployed Cisco 2501 routers at all sites for WAN connectivity and a Cisco PIX Firewall for policing Internet traffic.

Results
The Cisco solutions power ESI's business operations on three critical fronts. First, the network provides the primary communications medium to connect engineering, manufacturing, sales, and administrative personnel around the world. Second, it provides the platform for an ERP application that's fast becoming "command central" for all aspects of ESI's operation. The network supports an aggressive, global growth strategy by enabling ESI to parlay its core strengths and acquired capabilities into new opportunities with customers.

Background

With 400 employees at its headquarters and 11 remote sites, Electro Scientific Industries fits most definitions of a medium- sized business. But with a rapidly expanding product line, an aggressive acquisition strategy, and a new emphasis on company- wide communications and networked business processes, ESI will soon outgrow that definition.

The network has become a key platform for improving productivity, enhancing decision making, and reducing cycle times for ESI, which designs and builds sophisticated manufacturing tools for the worldwide electronics and semiconductor industries. Flexibility, scalability, and standards-based operation have been key features for the ESI network as the company's acquisitions have taken it into new disciplines, markets, and territories.

"We're trying to keep up with the growth of our company and our network--and manage it over the wide area," said Chuck Lewis, information systems manager. "We don't have the luxury of having everything in one campus. We probably have the challenges of a business five to ten times our size."

Challenge

With five U.S. and six foreign sites, Portland, Oregon-based ESI has grown reliant on its network for a range of business services, from intranet communication to enterprise resource planning and extending out to customer, supplier, and partner reach with its extranet.

ESI's former network consisted of shared Ethernet, with one router connecting to four subnets. Recently, the pace of expansion started to outstrip the capacity and performance of that network.

"The network is definitely tied into all our business processes here in the headquarters--manufacturing, accounting, finance, human resources," Lewis said. "It supports planning, shipping and receiving, order processing, inventory, and billing. And we probably depend as much on e-mail communication as on voice today. It's critical throughout our operation."

"We doubled the number of users in less than a year," Lewis explained. "We were seeing a brick wall in terms of keeping up with type of growth and capacity we wanted."

In addition, implementation of an extensive ERP application across all ESI business units and sites promised to further increase the burden on the existing infrastructure. The Symix ERP application is "mission control" for ESI, integrating the manufacturing, accounting, and order processing processes onto a common platform. But because it runs on a largely decentralized client server network with local servers stationed near workgroups and in the company's remote locations, the ERP application creates significant intersubnet traffic--and a heavy workload for routers.

Solution

To handle the increased traffic at the three-building headquarters campus, ESI upgraded to a high-performance, highly scalable, switched backbone based on a Cisco Catalyst 5505 multilayer switch with a route switch module (RSM). The Catalyst 5505 provided scalability for handling future growth, and the multilayer switching the company needed to handle the soaring volume of intersubnet traffic. This versatility proved to be a valuable step-saver for ESI, Lewis said.

"The beauty of the Catalyst 5505 was that all at once, I could solve a number of problems," he said. "We solved the routing bottleneck--and I could also add a lot more switching ports. What could have taken another two or three phases was all done at once with the Catalyst 5505."

To provide the performance needed for a new generation of tools while reducing management complexity, ESI began migrating toward a fully switched configuration in each location. With the Catalyst 5505 switch in the data center and Catalyst 2900 XL 10/100 desktop switches dispersed in wiring closets, ESI delivers dedicated 10 or 100 Mbps to each desktop and higher-speed uplinks to the Catalyst 5505 and servers through Fast EtherChannel technology. The modular design of the Catalyst 2900 XL switch enables ESI to upgrade its LAN while preserving its initial investment.

ESI installed Cisco 2501 routers at all sites and interconnected them over a Sprint Frame Relay service. The WAN connects its remote locations in the U.S. and abroad. The company added a Cisco PIX Firewall to act as a security checkpoint and provide greater address management flexibility for incoming and outbound Internet traffic.

The PIX Firewall has become increasingly valuable to ESI, which now offers its customers configuration assistance for its complex equipment, and other services over the Web. Extending the company's reach is a significant benefit for medium-sized ESI, Lewis said, "particularly since we have to support customers all over the world. Our extranet gives us twenty-four hour interaction with them. And the more customers and employees can help themselves, the more productive we can be."

Results

By supporting steady increases in database size, providing high-speed connections between servers and workgroups, and delivering high-performance links to high-demand users, "the network is the foundation that makes ERP possible for us," Lewis said.

The ease of installing and operating ESI's Cisco solutions has helped address another familiar problem of fast-growing companies: limited IS resources. In ESI's case, the company has limited expertise in its remote North American locations and none in the its international sites. ESI has standardized on a small set of Cisco equipment across the entire network--equipment that ESI has "found to be extremely reliable," Lewis said. With Cisco 2501 routers, for example, the IS team often has configured the equipment at the headquarters site and "simply shipped it out to the sites and had them plug the cables in," he said.

The rich array of management tools embedded in the Cisco solutions has also helped ESI leverage its limited IS resources across the enterprise.

"Here in the headquarters, we have visibility of the network all over the world," Lewis said.

ESI's corporate strategy is to parlay its core strengths and acquired capabilities into new opportunities with customers. Behind the scenes, the network provides the vital connections for that aggressive global growth strategy.

"Our network makes it possible and practical to achieve the promise of the ERP system," Lewis said. "The Cisco networking equipment makes it feasible to do everything we want to do.