Solutions in Action

PBM’s skilled consultants have engineered some of the world’s most unique and technologically advanced IT implementations for our clients’ critical business communication requirements over land, sea and air.

Financial Services » Data Center

A nationwide mortgage servicing company engaged PBM to assist in designing and deploying a large data center at their new corporate headquarters to support plans for rapid growth. The company knew that they needed to invest in technology that would create a “next generation” data center capable of servicing the needs of the organization for the next decade. PBM designed and deployed a data center utilizing the Cisco Nexus line of Ethernet switches, allowing our client to sustain a robust data center utilizing highly dense 10Gbps connectivity and Fiber Channel over Ethernet today, as well as scale to higher bandwidth technologies in the future.

Manufacturing » Unified Communications

PBM helped modernize and standardize their phone system. This organization was going through a period of rapid growth through both acquisitions and by organic expansion. While the headquarters of the organization was using an old and “maxed-out” PBX system, the new factories and branch offices were either introducing disparate key systems or needed new phone systems altogether. PBM worked with this company to deploy a Cisco Unified Communications system in a cost-effective and phased approach. The project began by introducing Call Manager Express deployments at the newly opened factories, leveraging the organizations local and wide area networks in a cost effective manner. Eventually, the PBX at the HQ office was replaced with a Cisco Unified Communications system and Unity unified messaging. Shortly thereafter, the remote offices and factories were integrated into the centralized system. Telephone system maintenance costs were drastically reduced and a consistent 4-digit dial plan was realized throughout the organization.

Community College » Mobility

A community college desired to deploy wireless access for all of its students throughout their campus, both indoors and out. The challenge was not only to provide sufficient wireless coverage, but to do so in a cost-effective manner that was easy to manage and secure enough to limit usage to registered students. PBM helped craft a solution using Cisco’s centralized wireless management system, Cisco’s Network Admission Control application, and PBM’s own expertise in wireless coverage and RF characteristics to provide a solution that addressed all of the college’s needs.

Education » Security

PBM has worked with educational institutions and colleges to help design, deploy and secure their networks. Our clients have included a variety of institutions, including one of the nation’s largest for-profit education providers serving over 50,000 students at more than 100 locations. Colleges often find themselves in a difficult situation from a network security perspective as they have many resources on their network, and a large number of network users that they have very little control over. Network security is always a challenge. Because colleges are particularly vulnerable to threats from within their own networks, the implementation of both network-based and host-based intrusion prevention solutions are key. Also paramount to maximizing the success of these technologies is the concurrent deployment of an event correlation system to help identify threats as they occur. PBM has worked to deploy network intrusion detection sensors, Cisco Security Agent on sensitive servers, and the Cisco MARS event correlation system to help create secure networks in exceedingly challenging environments.

Health Care » Network Infrastructure

A nationwide medical services provider looked to PBM to help centralize the IT resources that were distributed throughout the organization, as well as refresh an outdated data center architecture. PBM helped the organization consolidate operations into a new centralized, efficient data center architecture. The new data center design focused on a streamlined and consolidated design that bundled security, WAN acceleration, and load balancing services into the network itself. The new deployment resulted in a secure, efficient, and modular data center that is also highly scalable.

Global Communications At Sea

With corporate offices on three continents, the chairman of a global real estate group is constantly placing international phone calls and participating in global video conferences with his staff. Along with managing multiple time zones, he usually runs his business, not from behind a desk in a traditional office building, but while out to sea on his yacht.

PBM engineers designed a “first of its kind” global network seamlessly connecting the international offices and yacht with voice, video and data.

“PBM did something that’s never been done before. The fact that we have toll-free 4-digit dialing to and from any boardroom on three continents is extraordinary. PBM has energized the global network,” said the company’s IT Director.

Community Colleges Expand Network and Save 57%

When this global network of colleges significantly grew its network from 38 sites to 185 sites in two countries, communications between the client and PBM’s engineers enabled the aggressive network growth without the typical growing pains of network build outs.

At the same time, PBM helped reduce their costs by 57%. No additional hires were necessary since PBM became an extension of the client's IT team. PBM’s processes and discipline allowed the organization's IT team to focus on strategic business initiatives like adding more sites or devising disaster recovery plans.

"We no longer worry about whether or not the network will be up in the morning,” said the Assistant Vice President of IT Infrastructure. “When a circuit goes down on the East coast, PBM takes the initiative of getting the ball rolling before we even learn about it here on the West coast.”

Savings and Support for Reader’s Digest

Reader’s Digest decided to move off its ATM and frame relay networks to a lower cost alternative network. Subsequently, they learned that the new solution, although cost effective, was complicated to troubleshoot and required 24x7 live services as well as active monitoring to ensure stability.

Reader’s Digest turned to PBM for a strategic network management solution, which resulted in reduced expenses – saving over $1.4 million, improved service metrics, and maximized existing resources.

“Now, we know our network is consistently efficient, productive, and available,” said Reader’s Digest’s Global Networking Vice President. “By outsourcing the day-to-day running of the network to PBM’s Cisco certified engineers, my staff can concentrate on core objectives rather than getting caught up in the time-consuming tasks that often characterize network management.” With PBM, support is just that simple.