When a merger or acquisition is on the cards, due diligence looks at what’s lurking behind the financial sofa. But while some deals might fail for sleepy due diligence, more come undone through incompatibility of systems and business processes.

Look at the telecoms industry. Buying another company can cause the number of connected devices to explode. That’s good, isn’t it? More devices mean more revenue, surely? But Ruben Cervantes had seen first-hand the potential problems caused by failing to consider IP address management implications.

When he joined Telefónica Germany, Ruben found it was already using IPControl™ from BT Diamond IP. His smart move was to extend the solution to include acquired companies. Now as the company grows it’s virtually fireproof against the dangers of IP address conflicts, while IPv6 migration and DNS management are also assured.

IPControl™ from BT Diamond IP helps de-risk acquisition activity.

Case study - Telefónica Germany.

Lose track of your IP addresses and chaos ensues. In the worst case an IP address conflict could crash an entire network.

Ruben CervantesCore Network Engineer and HostmasterTelefónica Germany GmbH

BT solution protects telecoms giant against the dangers of uncontrolled IP addresses and unattended domain management.

Case Study - Telefónica Germany.

Beware the devil in the IP address detail.Telecoms industry consolidation naturally sees minnows gobbled up by bigger fish. Meanwhile fixed line providers buy into mobile, and vice versa. But any company bent on acquisition must deal with an easily-overlooked issue. Soaring numbers of connected devices can lead to IP address management nightmares.

Take Telefónica. It’s grown into one of the world’s telecoms giants. Hansenet in Germany, Jajah in Israel, Tuenti in Spain, and O2 in the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic are just some of the firms it’s bought. As a result, Telefónica Germany alone finds itself looking after nearly 11 billion (yes, that’s 11 billion) corporate and customer devices. Like switches and mobiles. Each with its own unique IP address.

Ruben Cervantes, Core Network Engineer and Hostmaster at Telefónica Germany, says: “Lose track of your IP addresses and chaos ensues. In the worst case an IP address conflict could crash an entire network.”

Scalable systems management in a single solution.New acquisitions had brought with them different do-it-yourself IP address management tools like Excel spreadsheets and ad hoc Access databases. Time spent by Telefónica IT people in keeping tabs on mushrooming IP address numbers was spiralling. IPControl™ from BT Diamond IP was chosen to sort things out.

“Being browser-based IPControl is user friendly and works with all operating systems,” says Ruben. “More importantly, it’s got the scalability to easily cope with a company of our size.” Telefónica Germany was delighted to also find that BT Diamond IP could manage web domains, of which the company has about 100,000.

Dual BT Diamond IP Sapphire EX20 servers were installed to run IPControl. Sitting behind them in a second tier are dual Sapphire X5 servers for DNS services. A third tier – acting as a distribution layer for management, public and internal domains – consists of triple X5 servers.

Offering flexible deployment options, IPControl works in multi-vendor DNS/DHCP environments. It also manages necessary migrations from IPv4 to the new IPv6 address standard. Ruben says: “Upgrading to IPv6 was a breeze; just a matter of selecting the devices and upgrading them in a single block.”

Professional services assistance and customisation.BT Diamond IP professional services people supported Telefónica Germany in the task of reformatting data from numerous legacy systems for upload into IPControl. Naturally, training was included as part of the package. Going forward, IPControl automatically validates data as it’s entered, to safeguard network integrity. That protects against IP address dangers caused by incorrect input.

Custom software created by the BT Diamond IP team for Telefónica Germany extends the IPControl feature-set to encompass virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) functionality. This allows the creation of separate customer VPNs, for example, and is now a standard feature of IPControl.

Because the routing instances are independent for each VPN, the same or overlapping IP addresses can be used without conflicting with each other. Nevertheless, they still need to be tightly controlled to prevent problems downrange. Previously a manual task, the BT custom software allows all VRF assignments to be viewed and managed onscreen through IPControl.

We get a fantastic, expert response from the BT Diamond IP service desk and competence centre.

Ruben CervantesCore Network Engineer and HostmasterTelefónica Germany GmbH

In any major company you’ve got thousands of different systems and the resource needed to keep them up-to-date and optimally configured is mind-boggling. Putting that responsibility in the hands of BT Diamond IP gives us peace of mind.

Ruben CervantesCore Network Engineer and HostmasterTelefónica Germany GmbH

Case Study - Telefónica Germany.

Management support with de‑risked acquisitions.Telefónica Germany also took the Sapphire infrastructure management (SIM) service. This provides 24x7x365 monitoring of hardware and software with proactive notification of alerts. “We get a fantastic, expert response from the BT Diamond IP service desk and competence centre,” says Ruben.

SIM includes automated backups of Sapphire EX databases too, and data restoration in the rare event of an outage. DHCP and DNS software updates are likewise performed automatically by the SIM service or, for major security and feature upgrades, according to a pre-planned schedule.

“In any major company you’ve got thousands of different systems and the resource needed to keep them up-to-date and optimally configured is mind-boggling,” says Ruben. “Putting that responsibility in the hands of BT Diamond IP gives us peace of mind and saves us around 20 man-hours per month.”

Finally, the BT Diamond IP solution has simplified the task of integrating acquired companies. Not only de-risking bringing different IP address management systems together, it also helps bring different IT cultures together.

“People are keen to come and see it,” concludes Ruben. “New teams are amazed to find that individual departments can do their own IP address assignment, while hostmasters like me assure overall compliance.”

Offices worldwideThe telecommunications services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time. Services and equipment are provided subject to British Telecommunications plc’s respective standard conditions of contract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract. © British Telecommunications plc 2015. Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ. Registered in England No: 1800000

July 2016

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BT Diamond IP core services.• IPControl™ DNS/DHCP/IPAM management

• Sapphire EX20, X10 and X5 appliances

• Sapphire Infrastructure Management (SIM) managed service

• Professional services