“Once we recognized the global scale of their hyperconnected network, we onboarded Zenlayer as a preferred vendor in record time so we could leverage their multi-service network to connect new business units and get to market across our 100s of operational locations.”

– The Customer

 

 

Key points

• Met critical deadlines in spite of supply chain disruptions via Zenlayer’s rapid deployment services
• Standardized and simplified IT infrastructure globally leveraging Zenlayer’s vertically integrated services
• Achieved faster analytics and improved business intelligence via high-speed, private, secure interconnections between distributed locations

 

About the customer

Industry: Logistics and shipping
Needs: Cross-border interconnection, latency reduction, infrastructure expansion
Zenlayer services used: IP Transit, Cloud Networking, Edge Colocation, Managed Hosting

The customer is a global leader in logistics and shipping with operations spanning 130+ countries and annual revenues exceeding $50 billion. The company faced significant challenges in managing and standardizing IT infrastructure across its massive global network of subsidiaries and acquired business entities.

To address these issues for successful, continued expansion worldwide, the customer approached Zenlayer to help them overcome logistical hurdles and streamline operations for optimal efficiency across the organization.

 

The challenge: overcoming IT infrastructure complexity and supply chain slowdowns

Operating globally with a sizable and growing number of subsidiaries and acquisitions, the logistics leader found it increasingly difficult to manage their complex, sprawling IT infrastructure. Each business unit maintained its own distinct IT systems, which resulted in operational inefficiencies and difficulties integrating services holistically across the organization.

As the customer’s footprint continued to grow, they recognized an urgent need to standardize their infrastructure across regions into a unified network – encompassing and offering centralized infrastructure-as-a-service to warehouses, data centers, offices, and other distributed locations and business units.  However, sourcing trustworthy, well-connected regional providers who can grant access to top local networks and cost-effective services while meeting all of the requirements vital to the logistics leader’s cross-border operations proved challenging, particularly in emerging markets.

Furthermore, supply chain slowdowns hampered the ability of hardware vendors to deliver equipment in time for the customer to meet stringent project deadlines, such as critical infrastructure cutovers.

Seeking to ensure a robust, low-latency internal network, minimized disruptions to business continuity, and redundant, private connections between their regional hubs and data centers, the global logistics leader needed a partner who can deliver a streamlined, scalable solution to help simplify and standardize their operations across the world.

 

Navigating hardware delays to meet critical deadlines

As the customer began infrastructure migrations to support restructuring of their global operations, their hardware vendor ran into issues with supply chain delays. In particular, the vendor had difficulties making timely equipment deliveries to the customer’s sites in Shanghai and Hong Kong, in part due to regulatory complexities within Greater China.

They initially turned to a Zenlayer partner provider who led the industry in global data center footprint but had insufficient regional resources where the customer needed to deploy. In turn, the logistics company faced high costs that made the monumental scale of their planned restructuring fiscally unfeasible. Unable to meet their cost alignment, the customer was referred to Zenlayer.

We were able to provide them with the custom dedicated hosting services, data center space, and access to both public and private networks at significantly more competitive rates.

Leveraging our rapid deployment capabilities and longstanding regional partnerships with leading local carriers and other service providers, the company was able to bridge their temporary resource gap to quickly meet deadlines without compromising network performance or reliability.

 

Strengthening and standardizing services across diverse geographies

As the customer’s business grew and their operations continued to balloon from new acquisitions around the world, they faced mounting costs and administrative complexity from the colocation spaces and other services to securely host and interconnect their fleet of hardware in various regions. This proved especially challenging in emerging markets, where the hypercompetitive peering landscapes made it virtually impossible for the logistics company to find trustworthy and capable partners who can provide everything they needed for successful digital transformation on a global scale.

As a result, the customer returned to Zenlayer to resolve their increasingly complex and costly infrastructure hurdles.

We provided them with local IP transit and other mission-critical services vertically integrated within data centers in regions that they needed to securely host their gear, saving the company from the need to build out their own additional infrastructure. Partnering with Zenlayer helped the company pull back from high CAPEX to a sustainable OPEX, saving valuable time and availing funds for their other core objectives to fuel their expansion.

In addition, we helped the logistics leader deploy six edge nodes with compute and high-performance, private networking in Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and Taipei. These nodes wrap up the colocation and networking services the customer needed to smoothly manage and standardize their infrastructure even in hard-to-reach markets, boosting operational efficiency, simplifying maintenance, and giving them greater agility to scale according to rapidly changing business demands.

 

Creating a secure, high-speed cross-border enterprise network

With the help of Zenlayer’s hyperconnected cloud networking services, the logistics leader structured their edge premises to consolidate data back to a central aggregation point, with regional data centers processing and replicating traffic to other hubs through our high-performance global backbone. Further, the customer was able to achieve better cost efficiency by leveraging Zenlayer’s multi-use ports to run multiple cross-connect circuits.

Our high-speed, private global backbone was employed to easily and quickly interconnect their newly deployed edge nodes to their existing hubs in Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong via private VLANs, ensuring seamless and secure communication and data transfers between sites.

This strategy accelerates the customer’s traffic via ultra-low latency connections and Zenlayer’s proprietary dynamic routing optimization, bolstering the company’s ability to effectively ingest and manage vast amounts of data from their various global locations to enhance their logistics services, internal data analytics and AI training, as well as overall business intelligence.

 

Looking ahead

The world-leading logistics provider plans to continue expanding their enterprise network and optimizing their digital infrastructure with Zenlayer. The road to global standardization of enterprise resources and services grows ever longer as their business booms with new acquisitions. Zenlayer will keep collaborating with the customer to eliminate barriers to expansion and operational efficiency, empowering the logistics company to quickly capture emerging opportunities and focus on other growth objectives.

 

Simplify cross-border enterprise networking with Zenlayer

Zenlayer’s rapid turnaround — even in hard-to-reach regions, end-to-end compute and networking solutions, and ultra-low latency global backbone helped the customer meet critical deadlines, standardize IT infrastructure, and streamline operations across the globe.

The company now has a high-performance, easily scalable, and redundant network that enables them to painlessly and efficiently oversee and manage resources and services across their global footprint. In addition, their internal AI training and data analytics are now enhanced and accelerated with private, secure, and high-speed interconnections between distributed locations.

If you’re looking to expand your business’s global footprint, streamline operations, or accelerate apps or services to improve user experience, talk to a Zenlayer solution expert today!

For instant provisioning, check out zenConsole — our self-service platform that lets you deploy around the world in minutes.