Realworld Eastern Europe and CROSS selected by AFR-IX

CROSS selected by pan-African carrier AFR-IX to boost operational performance.

Gearing up for growth – moving from open source to centralised network inventory management

Recently, we closed a contract with a fast-growing, pan-African carrier and service provider, AFR-IX. Our new client has built an advanced, Cisco-based network to deliver connectivity services across the African continent. The portfolio includes L2/L3 services, direct internet access, international private leased circuits, as well as managed co-location services.

With a growing footprint of data centres and surging customer demand for reliable, cost-effect connectivity solutions, AFR-IX had enjoyed great success. However, managing this growing footprint began to present challenges.

In particular, the ability to deliver new services, quickly and easily, while delivering promised SLAs became increasingly difficult for AFR-IX. Both factors are key differentiators against established and incumbent providers, with legacy processes. Maintaining the operational and service agility became a key strategic goal for the leadership team.

From open source to a proven, future-proof, consolidated solution

Until recently, AFR-IX had relied on an open-source inventory management solution across its growing footprint. However, this had a number of limitations which negatively impacted operational performance – and created barriers to future growth. To retain competitive advantage, the carrier decided to invest in a new, centralised solution.

We’re thrilled to announce that CROSS has been chosen by AFR-IX, and will become the new, consolidated common inventory platform to help support the carrier’s growth and performance optimisation plans.

As a result of the deployment, all network components – switches and routers – will be integrated with CROSS. The auto-discovery tools will enable detailed information regarding resource availability and location (for example, devices, cards, ports and transceivers) to be obtained, when required – accelerating deployment times.

The project is in its early stages but will also extend to CRM integration for sales and order management, with automation planned as an additional step to create zero-touch processes.

All in all, it’s an exciting project that takes CROSS to another network operator that’s seeking to build competitive advantage – AFR-IX. Watch this space for future updates!