Novell ditches frame relay links in cost-cutting move

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Net services software company Novell is to abandon its frame relay links from its New Zealand offices to the company's United States headquarters to help cut costs. Asia Pacific information systems director Sam Gennaoui said frame relay-based wide area network (WAN) links at Novell's Auckland and Wellington branches would be replaced with broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) connections this month.

Mr Gennaoui said the move was part of a global Novell initiative called Internet Office that would allow staff to access company information from its "i-login" corporate portal. The portal allows employees to log in to the company's intranet, or run applications and personalised services from any location using standard internet browsers.

When the initiative has been fully implemented only 10 out of Novell's 110 branches will maintain WAN links to the company headquarters in Provo, Utah.

Novell says the carrier-managed DSL links, which will be provided locally by Telecom New Zealand, are proving cheaper and much faster than frame relay services.

Mr Gennaoui said each existing frame relay link typically cost about $US1200 ($2730) a month whereas DSL connections cost from around $A500 ($608) a month.

"Overall we are getting around a 50 per cent reduction in cost and a 10-fold increase in bandwidth," he said. "When you add this up around the world, you can see it's going to save us millions of dollars a year."

Additional savings would be made as Novell's local offices could now dispense with a considerable amount of WAN hardware such as servers and routers.

While this in turn would "free up IT staff from repetitive tasks" such as maintenance and backup, Mr Gennaoui did not believe it would lead to any redundancies.