How solution provider GenX made remote meetings between authors and readers a reality.Popular canadian author Margaret Atwood imagined a pen that would take book tours in her stead while she sat in her favorite location signing books for fans. The pen, a remote signing device connected to a videoconferencing system, made its debut at the London International Book Fair in March 2006.
But instead of revolutionizing book signings, the debut was hampered by network issues. The device didn’t work, though the videoconferencing part went as planned. However, the company that made the device, Unotchit (pronounced “you no touch it”), wasn’t about to give up. Instead, the Toronto-based company turned to a 24-year-old solution provider, GenX Solutions, also in Toronto, to devise a way to overcome the obstacles that derailed the device’s trans-Atlantic debut.
GenX, a Cisco Systems channel partner, went to work on tackling the network issues, enlisting the help of Cisco, other solution providers and distributor Ingram Micro. As a result, Unotchit has gone on to successfully stage more than 40 events linking authors and celebrities from their preferred locations to a network of retail locations worldwide.
“We designed a new communication infrastructure that meets Unotchit’s mobility and quality-of-service requirements and is less expense than the alternative they were using,” said Martin Warren, vice president of sales at GenX.
Unotchit was formed in 2004 with the specific task of designing the long-distance signing device called LongPen. A multifaceted product, LongPen uses the Internet, videoconferencing and a digital writing tablet for remote, real-time book signing. While Unotchit tapped its technical and robotics expertise to create and construct the LongPen remote signing device, it didn’t have the global network and communication know-how it needed to make the product a commercial success.
Today, Unotchit uses DMVPN Cisco (Dynamic Multipoint VPN) technology and Cisco routers to provide a high-availability, high-performance network infrastructure.
Back to the drawing board
Internet and firewall complications got in the way of the planned London-to-Ontario debut signing. “Seventy percent of the event went as planned, but the writing communication infrastructure didn’t work as planned,” said Matthew Gibson, senior vice president of operations at Unotchit. Gibson has 20 years of product development experience and is Atwood’s stepson.
Knowing that LongPen’s future hinged on finding the right communication infrastructure design and wanting to put the book fair fiasco behind him, Gibson said he went back to the drawing board and set out to find the network communication experts who could make it happen. “We built our own hardware, but we didn’t want to become experts on communication infrastructure,” he said.
Gibson said he knew there were experts out there and at a local Toronto techie hangout, word of mouth brought GenX into the picture.
With the clear mission to make LongPen work as originally planned, Unotchit became a GenX client in April 2006. “It was definitely a unique challenge,” Warren said.
An $8.5 million (Canadian) company with 21 employees, GenX focuses on providing innovative IT solutions for the small and midsize business market.
The initial network communication design that Unotchit brought to the table was based on MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), a private network that could be integrated with existing infrastructures, such as the Internet.
According to Warren, however, while the solution provided a high level of service, it was management-intensive and costly—about $300,000 annually. “It was also very complex in that it required coordinating communications providers internationally,” he said. Because LongPen was a uniquely mobile solution, Warren said he feared that LongPen events could turn into logistics nightmares.
GenX needed to find an alternative.
A longtime Ingram Micro Venture Tech Network partner, Warren turned to Jeff Anderson, Cisco business manager for Ingram Micro Canada, for technical assistance. “He wanted to standardize on a Cisco VPN and wanted to know if we could help,” Anderson said.
In a nutshell, the distributor introduced GenX to Raffael Cipriani, presales systems engineer and Cisco specialist with Ingram Micro Canada, and to a new Cisco product line with which the solution provider had no prior experience.
Initially, GenX proposed using the carrier network and Cisco’s PIX security appliances. The first suggestion Cipriani made was to upgrade from PIX to Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance, which does everything PIX does and more.
One drawback, however, was that ASA doesn’t support the DMVPN technology he proposed as an alternative solution for Unotchit. DMVPN is a solution built on Cisco routers that offers greater flexibility than either the PIX or ASA security appliance.
“DMVPN is not only a more mobile solution but easier to deploy,” Cipriani said.
DMVPN also provides a level of service equal to that of the original MPLS network.
The Cisco specialist, Warren and GenX’s chief technology officer met to hammer out the details of the network infrastructure. Two weeks later, the team had a plan. “The design is a mesh network within the Internet itself,” Warren said.
Global collaboration
The newly designed network infrastructure involved building co-location facilities in five major cities—Toronto, New York, London, Los Angeles and Sydney—for long-haul trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific and transcontinental Internet connectivity. Each LongPen broadcast point (where the author would sit) and receiver kiosk (with the LongPen writing unit) would feature a Cisco 871 router configured to join the DMVPN. When in use, the routers direct traffic to Cisco 1811 routers housed in the five co-location facilities. The co-location facilities are linked via a redundant 100M-bps Internet connection.
But that’s not all. Taking into consideration that broadcast points could be in places where a traditional VPN connection is not possible—such as behind a DSL router in someone’s home, for example—the 1811 routers enable an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or software-based VPN.
“If the computer can see an Internet connection, such as by making the firewall think it’s connected to a secure Web page, the solution will work,” Warren said.
Getting the go-ahead from Unotchit, GenX acquired demonstration hardware from Cisco for a proof-of-concept run. In late September 2006 the LongPen network was put to the test in a London-to-Toronto book signing by author Kate Mosse. It was a success. The network was rolled out in its entirety two months later. GenX provided the network design, implementation services and hardware.
To date, no failures have occurred in the more than 40 LongPen events that have taken place, much to the pleasure of Unotchit executives. “GenX knows what we’re doing,” Gibson said. “They’re responsive to our needs and they solved a problem that was critical to our corporate success.”
Service scope
Solving the network infrastructure problem was just one piece of the relationship between GenX and Unotchit. On an ongoing basis, GenX is providing technical services and support required at both ends at a Unotchit book-signing event. GenX provides on-site support required to set up the technology, to assist the users throughout the event and to shut it down.
However, the solution provider isn’t going it alone. GenX tapped the Ingram Micro Services Network, an organization of more than 10,000 certified IT services professionals who work together to provide IT service and support for customers in North America.
“IMSN partner members help GenX with support, implementation and deployment at the endpoints,” Anderson said.
The partner network is working out well, according to Warren. “Ingram Micro does a good job of coordinating partners [and] providing service reports, and billing goes directly through the system,” he said. GenX retains responsibility for shipping all hardware equipment worldwide.
Unotchit proves to be a unique customer, with each event open to its own challenges based on location, timeline or the personalities of the individuals involved.
For example, Atwood did a book signing from the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo to the Book Lover’s Ball in Toronto, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did a book signing from a mountaintop in Vermont. “The embassy had amazing security limitations, and there wasn’t an Internet connection from the mountaintop in Vermont,” Warren said.
Training on the technology pieces of the LongPen solution is critical. GenX staff is trained on all aspects of the robotics technology, the Tandberg videoconferencing gear and Lenovo writing tablets. On-site technicians are also required to sign a professional code of conduct.
Up next
The fateful meeting between GenX and Unotchit has had a big impact on the solution provider’s business.
The global nature of Unotchit’s business has provided the economic viability to help GenX accelerate plans it already had to expand globally. “The relationship is helping us expand our knowledge of the global marketplace,” Warren said.
The solution provider has also deepened its relationship with channel partners such as Ingram Micro, Cisco and Lenovo.
LongPen’s reach goes beyond bringing together authors and celebrities. “Leveraging resources in the channel and vendor community, we’ve been able to respond to a request that a company our size wouldn’t have otherwise been able to handle,” Warren said. “Instead, we’re able to compete against the likes of IBM Global Technology Services and other enterprise-level providers.”
Lynn Haber is a freelance writer in Norwell, Mass. She can be reached at lthaber@comcast.net.
