Flow International Selects Virtela to Reduce Business Costs and Complexity
Managed MPLS Network Relieves Demands on IT Staff and
Enables Strategic Focus
Key Enterprise Benefits:
- Fast network activation eases global expansion efforts
- Converged data, voice and video network reduces costs while
boosting performance
- Proactive customer service frees up IT staff to focus on more
strategic business
DENVER, April 13, 2010 - Virtela, the world's largest independent managed
network services company, today announced that Flow International
Corporation is using Virtela to provide a fully managed wide area
network (WAN) that helps reduce the cost and complexity of running
global business. Flow (NASDAQ: FLOW) is the world's leading
developer and manufacturer of industrial waterjet machines for
cutting and cleaning applications.
As Flow's business expanded globally, the company became
strained by working with multiple vendors to maintain a virtual
private network (VPN) between its U.S. headquarters and branch
offices around the world. The decision was made to migrate to an MPLS
network and consolidate vendors for greater simplicity and
cost-efficiency. Throughout a rigorous five-month selection
process, Virtela proved itself as the best option for global
network services from a single source. With Virtela, Flow now has a
fully managed MPLS network that enables communication between its
sites in North America, South America, Europe and Asia and easily
scales to accommodate new locations. Flow's network is backed by
follow-the-sun customer support from Virtela's three global network
and security operations centers and the Flow IT team has complete
visibility into network performance through Virtela's online
portal, VirtelaView.
"Our enterprise network is critical to enabling our business to
compete on a global scale, and we look to Virtela as a worldwide
partner for our business, especially as we evaluate expansion
opportunities," said Steve Bell, group manager for global
infrastructure engineering & datacenter operations at Flow.
"Teaming with Virtela has significantly reduced the complexity of
supporting international locations since we no longer have to
manage multiple contracts from multiple vendors in multiple
countries. This allows us to focus on our core IT mission of
supporting the global business."
Unique among network service providers, Virtela intelligently
routes customer traffic over its multi-carrier Global Service
FabricSM, which aggregates and integrates the best local, regional
and global networks to offer unparalleled resilience and geographic
reach. In addition to MPLS, Virtela offers an extensive portfolio
of managed services - including IP network, security, remote
access, device monitoring and management, and application
acceleration. Virtela's carrier- and vendor-agnostic approach
allows customers to leverage the best-of-breed network services
that meet their specific price and performance needs.
"Virtela has helped us reduce our overall infrastructure costs
by enabling us to run video and VoIP communications over one
high-performance network," continued Bell. "We've been extremely
pleased with the availability and uptime of the Virtela network.
Another real strength of the partnership is Virtela's
responsiveness, which gives us the ability to able to add and
remove sites very quickly so we can be more dynamic as a
business."
"Especially as the economy shows signs of a rebound, companies
require network providers that truly act as strategic partners to
help them successfully expand while getting the most out of every
network dollar they invest," said Vab Goel, Virtela CEO and partner
at Norwest Venture Partners."Our partnership with Flow is an
excellent example of how companies can achieve the highest quality
network service and support to seamlessly communicate between their
global offices while easing expenses at the same time."
About Virtela
Virtela, the world's largest independent managed services
company, offers award-winning managed services including MPLS
and IP-based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Security, Remote
Access, and WAN/LAN Device Monitoring and Management, to some of
the most competitive multinational companies in the world. Offering
services in 190 countries, Virtela integrates and manages
best-of-breed service providers through partnerships with 500+
carriers, to address the unique needs of its customers. Virtela is
headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with Global Network Operations
Centers in Denver, Mumbai, India and Manila, Philippines. For more
information, please call +1 (720) 475-4000 or visit www.virtela.net.
About Flow International
Flow International Corporation is the world's leading developer
and manufacturer of ultrahigh-pressure waterjet technology for
cutting and cleaning. Flow provides state-of-the-art
ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) technology to numerous industries
including automotive, aerospace, job shop, surface preparation,
food and dozens more. For more information, visit http://www.flowcorp.com/
Media Contact:
Jane Morrissey
Virtela
720.475.4012 (office)
303.808.7671 (mobile)
jmorrissey@virtela.com
Catharine Morgan
Greenough Communications
+1.617.275.6552
cmorgan@greenoughcom.com