France: PSA Peugeot Citroen Uses H3C Switches to Improve Office Automation and Deploy New Services

Background

France’s PSA Peugeot Citroën (PSA) is a leading global automaker selling cars and trucks in over 150 countries around the world. Its operations include global industrial locations comprising 15 automobile assembly plants and 15 component and casting plants (engines, gearboxes, suspensions). Recently, the company constructed a new office facility named "Pôle Tertiaire 2" (PT2) near its manufacturing plant in Poissy, a suburb of Paris. The building will house offices and various operational departments. As a brand new structure, PSA had the opportunity to build a sophisticated, feature-rich network for PT2 from the ground up.

PSA wanted a complete office automation capable network that supports VoIP and data applications. When selecting a vendor, PSA rated potential providers on their quality of service, performance and expandability of the solution. After evaluating many vendors, PSA chose H3C to design and build the network for its PT2 building.

Technology Solution

Following the requirements set out by PSA, H3C designed a network architecture based on its portfolio of high performance switches. Starting at the core, two S8500 series switches were used as core layer switches to prevent single point faults. The H3C S9500/S8500 switches are connected via double Gigabit Ethernet trunks offering redundant backup. One H3C S9500/S8500 switch also connects PT2 to a PSA data center. The H3C S9500/S8500 series switch is a next generation 10 Gigabit multi-service core routing switch providing high-capacity, high-density, modular structure and L2 and L3 wire-speed forwarding performance.

Sixteen H3C S7500/S6500 series high-end multi-service switches were used as aggregation and access layer switches. To maximize the efficiency of the H3C S7500/S6500 series switches, the network design features GE-to-desktop connections, eliminating the need for a separate access layer. Each H3C S7500/S6500 switch can support up to 288 GE interfaces cost-effectively for high density, wire-speed performance. And every H3C S7500/S6500 switch is connected to both the core layer switches by double GE links for maximum redundancy.

Why H3C?

H3C designed a cost-effective solution for PSA’s present-day bandwidth and performance needs while laying the foundation for future upgrades and service expansions. Its 10GE platform has the non-blocking switching capacity to provide ample room for growth within PT2. With hot swappable interface cards on the core switches and redundant links connecting all switches throughout the building, H3C’s solution offered PSA the reliable network design they required to deploy rich QoS features, which can support traditional data applications and delay-sensitive VoIP services.

Benefits

PSA Peugeot Citroën’s new office facility, PT2, is equipped with a dependable, high speed OA network that enables the company to deploy integrated VoIP and data services in a single network architecture. The new PT2 building-wide network has outstanding performance with a switch fabric capacity of 300Gbps and L3 packet throughput of 180Mpps. Double links between switches and layers and H3C’s fault-tolerance technology provide complete redundancy. The expansible nature of the H3C S9500/S8500 and H3C S7500/S6500 switches also helps give PSA a future-proofed IT investment.