FIELD REPORT
POLARIS PRESIDENT SCOTT COOKE
Polaris Automation: When Security Needs Meet Speed How one engineering firm provides fast and safe service for manufacturing clients worldwide THE CHALLENGE:
[TWCBC] is adept and well trained in understanding the security issues we’re up against. –Scott Cooke
22
In a way, it was a good problem to have—the industrial automation control systems engineered by Columbus, Ohio–based Polaris Automation and its sister company, Industrial Solutions, Inc. (ISI), drove such rapid growth that they outgrew their shared office space. The company’s servers remained at Polaris while ISI engineers moved to a nearby location. However, its previous provider’s wireless Ethernet point-to-point connection, which linked the two offices, soon began to cost the company latency, and cause downtime and communication gaps. Data-sharing ate up so much bandwidth that Internet protocol (IP) phones were rendered useless. Polaris, an
engineering firm specializing in the design of industrial automation control systems, needed a better connection to support its two locations. It also needed to scale bandwidth to securely support clients worldwide.
THE SOLUTION: The answer was found in a TWCBC fiber network that allows for capacity, scalability, and control. Polaris and ISI often control a customer’s business systems remotely, or stream video from closed-circuit TVs for remote troubleshooting. Accordingly, the companies require enhanced bandwidth for dedicated virtual private network (VPN) connections. They also need it for encryption, authentication, and other
Spring 2015
solve magazine q2 2015R.indd 22
3/30/15 10:11 AM
