| Customer | NET-A-PORTER |
| Location | A standardised, quality, future proofed network |
| Requirements | 3000 points - HQ in Westfield,– Distribution centre in South London. Excel Cat 5e, Cat 6A and OM3 loose tube fibre |
| Equipment | |
| Customer's View | "We needed to ensure that we didn’t think small any more; scale, capacity and growth was key. Everything we have done has been driven around making sure that the infrastructure we put in place can meet the needs of the business today and can scale to meet the needs of the business in the future. The Excel system installed by Worksmart has given us the capacity to do this; I am delighted with the results." Daniel Cooper, Head of Technical Services, NET-A-PORTER |
NET-A-PORTER.COM is the world's premier online luxury fashion retailer. Since launching in June 2000, NET-A-PORTER has successfully established itself as a luxury brand. The pages of NET-A-PORTER feature high fashion editorial, updated weekly with new content and product, which is viewed by over 2.5 million women each month.
NET-A-PORTER sells solely via the Internet. The company has a broad spectrum of users who require basic desktop functionality through to high definition video editing and the management of thousands of high quality images at any time.
Despite being only internet based, the company has multiple locations across the world, including a European distribution centre in South London, a head office in Westfield London, and offices and a distribution centre in the US. Standardisation and quality across all of these sites is paramount if the company is to continue its success and so sound infrastructure for all areas of the business is essential.
The company has seen significant growth and this has resulted in the expansion and movement of both offices and warehouses. To cope with this continued growth, new cabling infrastructure needed to be installed in the Westfield headquarters and warehouse facilities.
The cabling infrastructure was of such great importance it needed to be handled by an experienced company with significant project management skills. This is why Worksmart Technology was chosen. Based in central London, Worksmart had the experience necessary and with an existing relationship with NET-A-PORTER, having already completed installations at other facilities, they were by far the best choice.
Worksmart not only had to deliver the cabling installation on time and on budget but they needed to understand the business needs of NET-A-PORTER and advise them accordingly to ensure that the system installed was scalable and able to accommodate further growth in the future. Using their expertise, knowledge and experience Worksmart were able to deliver the system that was required.
A number of challenges were met by Worksmart along the way including adjusting their schedule to fit with the changing timescales of the construction companies. This involved regular meetings to keep the work on track and to ensure that the whole project was delivered on time.
In Westfield alone over 1800 network points were installed and again 1000 network points were installed in their South London distribution centre spread over 3 different buildings.
The product range installed throughout the project was Excel. The Excel product range provides an end-to-end solution. Performance and ease of installation are its foundation, along with standards compliance, reliability and product availability.
All Excel products come with third party verification, and are an independent ‘tick in the box', verifying either a product or a set of products' compliance with a particular standard. Excel works closely with third party test laboratories such as Delta, ETL, and 3P.
The Excel products that have been installed throughout the sites include Category 6A and Cat 5e copper cable and OM3 loose tube fibre cable.
Excel Category 6A – Augmented Category 6 – cables, and associated connectors, take the performance capabilities of copper infrastructure to new levels. The cable has been designed to exceed the ISO/IEC, TIA and CENELEC for Category 6A /Augmented Category 6 component requirements. This delivers Class EA/Augmented Category 6 link performance over distances of up 90 metres which supports the applications including 10GBASE-T, 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Excel solid conductor Category 5e is an independently verified 4 pair UTP cable which conforms to the enhanced performance Category 5 specification.
Excel Loose Tube Internal/External 50/125 OM3 Grade fibre cables are constructed around a silica gel filled tube containing up to 24 colour coded 250um buffered 50/125 Multimode fibres. This tube is covered with aramid strength members and a flame retardant and low smoke halogen free, outer sheath.
When installed by an accredited Excel Cabling Partner, which Worksmart Technologies is, copper and fibre cables are supported by a comprehensive 25 year warranty programme, meaning that NET-A-PORTER can have peace of mind for the future.
The cabling system installed is not only able to support the existing network but it also has the capabilities to provide the levels of performance needed as the business continues to grow.
"There is massive diversity in our business from production, creative, photography, video, marketing, sales, finance and so on, and they are all growing and expanding at different rates. In terms of what we have today from our cabling infrastructure from Worksmart, I have absolute confidence that when I'm asked to deliver high definition video to 50 new users I can do it, with no trouble at all."
Daniel Cooper, Head of Technical Services, NET-A-PORTER
