BT wins €3.5M contract to connect National Car Test Centres

Applus+ chose BT, a leading global provider of communications and IT services, to design, build and manage the network for Ireland's National Car Test (NCT) service. A complex infrastructure was delivered on time and on budget, with BT involved in every element of the project, from procuring hardware in the 46 local test centres, to hosting infrastructure in its Dublin Data Centre.

The design and rollout of a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network was the first phase in a three-year €3.5m contract, connecting the test centres to the Applus+ head office in Dublin as well as the Data Centre.

'By rolling out a best-in-class network that is resilient enough to support its mission critical service, we ticked the two boxes that were an immediate priority for Applus+,' said Colm O'Neill, Managing Director, Business, BT Ireland. 'But this deal also typifies the long-term partnership approach that BT cultivates with its customers.'

Grant Henderson, Managing Director of Applus+ in Ireland and the UK, commented, 'The BT Managed service allows us to concentrate on our core business of inspecting 800,000 vehicles a year in Ireland, confident that BT will give our company the infrastructure we need to serve our customers, quickly and efficiently.'

Having been awarded a 10-year contract by the Road Safety Authority, Applus+ took over the running of the NCT centres in January this year. The Spanish multinational had already worked with BT in its home market so there was already some synergy between the two companies that proved invaluable when it came to rolling out a new infrastructure in a new country, in a limited timeframe.

The contract covers a complete managed service with the core IT infrastructure hosted in the BT Data Centre. There is a dedicated point-to-point connection between the Applus+ head office and the BT facility. BT was also involved in the procurement and deployment of IT equipment and network infrastructure for each test centre.

A key requirement of the contract was a business continuity plan that ensured each site would still be up and running in the event of network failure. Data can be held onsite until the connection is restored. When it's back online the regional systems automatically synchronise with the head office. To provide further resilience, BT installed routers for switching over to a 3G network in the event of sustained downtime.

Colm O'Neill sums up the project: 'We were able to understand their entire business requirement and come up with the technology to deliver it. Applus+ depends on business critical connectivity and resilience — BT was able to give them peace of mind.'