Remote Base Depends on Satellite Link
The southern continent of Antarctica has a permanent layer of ice that covers an area as large as the United States and Mexico combined, and comprises 70% of the world's fresh water and 90% of its ice. The average temperature on the Antarctic continent is -49C yet it is home to millions of penguins, seals, whales and birds. An international treaty prohibits the exploitation of natural resources, but scientific research is permitted.

Since 1959, Scott Base has been New Zealand's permanent base in Antarctica that operates all year round. On July 1, 1996, the government of New Zealand established the New Zealand Antarctic Institute known as Antarctica New Zealand (or "Antarctic NZ").

Telecom New Zealand has a satellite earth station located on Ross Island, which provides phone and data services to both Scott Base and to the United States Base, McMurdo Station, located some 3km away. A Telecom NZ technician is also part of the Scott Base support staff. Antarctica NZ has a 64/128K burstable frame relay service between Scott Base and its main offices in Christchurch, New Zealand purchased from Telecom New Zealand.


Business Challenge
In 2003, the IT team at Antarctic NZ began planning the rollout of their new Citrix-published Navision application. Navision would give them better control of their ordering, shipping and cargo-tracking processes. "The cost of connectivity out here is not what you'd find in Christchurch—or Los Angeles—so we wanted to get the absolute maximum performance from the satellite connection," jokes Mike Mahon, the IT & Science Administrator at Scott Base.

The main research season runs from October to February, with up to 86 people on base and 15-30 researchers in the field. While around 400 people pass through Scott Base over the summer season, from the end of February to October, only 10 people "winter-over" at the base to support long-term science events and carry out maintenance. During the winter period, Scott Base and the US base, McMurdo station, are isolated with no plane flights or ship access. "As you can well imagine, the satellite link is a lifeline to the outside world, both for work and play," said Mahon.

The Solution
When looking into traffic management, Mahon thoroughly researched the field. "We looked at a number of vendors, including the so-called market leaders, before selecting NetEnforcer. We found NetEnforcer's management more intuitive, and setting policies with the Policy Editor was a breeze," said Mahon. "Deep Packet Inspection was another huge plus. This enabled us to distinguish between the various types of Citrix traffic and to prioritize specific published applications over others."
 

"We also like the NetEnforcer's web update. We can download a new protocol definition list on a regular basis and stay ahead of the latest fad in peer-to-peer technology. Our NetEnforcer is able to control new protocols before they take over our bandwidth." It also fit in well with our existing architecture and enhanced products such as NetIQ's Mail and Web Marshal that we also use for bandwidth and content management.

The Policy-Powered Networking Advantage
The NetEnforcer solution offered Antarctic NZ the following business and technical advantages:

Network Visibility
Using DPI, Antarctica NZ is able to successfully identify all Citrix traffic and prioritize the traffic from certain published applications over others. This ensures that their link is optimized for their needs.

Real-time Monitoring
Mahon uses the NetEnforcer's real-time monitoring to follow application performance and troubleshoot networking problems.

Increased Link Lifespan
Since the NetEnforcer was able to precisely control the allocation of resources to the various applications, Antarctica NZ's demand for bandwidth could be efficiently allocated.

In Conclusion
"Beyond a doubt, the NetEnforcer let us thaw our data links", concludes Mahon. "During business hours, we get the performance we need for Citrix, web and email traffic. At the same time, we can meet our users' recreational needs when bandwidth is not required for research. This ensures maximum efficiency of the bandwidth we have, without buying more bandwidth. It helps keep everyone happy - even our accountant."