VPN links civil engineering firm’s sites

Civil engineering company Edmund Nuttall is implementing a virtual private network (VPN) to improve communication with employees at building sites around the country.

The system, from supplier Community Internet, will serve 2,000 users and give the engineering firm greater security and more bandwidth, with up to 30Mbit/s for its main office.

Steve Shepherd, Edmund Nuttall’s IT manager, says the VPN will link building sites around the UK into a single system.

‘Our construction sites can use central resources and applications that we make available. It also provides better control of intranet access,’ he said.

The VPN is also intended to provide secure access to company services such as intranet and email for staff working at home or off-site at clients’ offices.

‘With the increase in broadband, people can access Nuttall’s infrastructure from home, which makes them more productive,’ said Shepherd.

Increased bandwidth is needed to cope with the growing size of files being exchanged by the company’s systems and the larger set of web applications in use, says Shepherd.

‘For example, we have an online training record for our staff, which can now be updated from remote sites as opposed to centrally,’ he said. ‘We are also looking at using smartcards to hold training histories.’

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