British American Tobacco (BAT) is implementing specialist network technology to support a global SAP application portal for 12,000 users.

In addition to its existing SAP structure, BAT has rolled out the application portal to help reduce application delivery and maintenance costs while maintaining operational efficiency worldwide.

Before the introduction of two SAP human resource applications on the new portal, BAT wanted to ensure that its infrastructure was fit for purpose, so the network implementation was supported by best practices, guidance and software for optimising SAP applications provided by supplier F5.

“A few years ago we experienced a succession of stability problems when we rolled out an SAP SRM solution globally; we did not want to make the same mistake twice,” said BAT’s global portal solutions centre manager Brian Lane.

“Based on our past experience, we immediately knew that we had to have a web acceleration device, particularly because we were experiencing varying network speeds around the globe.”

Long-term benefits from the F5 system include the provision of web acceleration and security requirements for the wide area network (WAN) in one package, with additional features aimed at improving efficiency and cost effectiveness.

“With the product’s ability to handle caching and compression, for example, we’re expected to cut operation costs at some of our datacentres where we pay per volume of network traffic,” said Lane.

The implementation of the network is overseen in partnership with network security supplier ITC.