Oil & Gas Company Overcomes Network Failures with Rugged, High-Performance Solution

The problem

A large oil and gas exploration and production company operates its own secure network with long-range communication towers spread over hundreds of square miles throughout Texas. The company had been using commercial-grade managed switches for over a decade to manage traffic between local area networks (LANs) and backhaul (high-capacity) network connections. 

Summer temperatures frequently reached well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the company experienced failures with its existing switches. The company sought a more robust solution that could withstand environmental conditions. It needed a ready solution that its technicians could swap out quickly and easily, to avoid production delays and stoppages that could harm profitability.

The solution

Automated Dynamics, Corp (ADC) engaged the company to demonstrate the N-Tron® Series NT5000 Gigabit Managed Switch features and interface. The company ordered two NT5000 Gigabit Managed Layer 2 Ethernet Switches immediately. After a few weeks of testing, they ordered an additional 150 switches.

The customer had trust in Red Lion hardware and knew its products were sufficiently rugged for the application. The company selected the NT5000 switches over competitor switches for ease of use, reliability, security, and availability.

The NT5000 is easy for end users to set up, requires little training, and has a simple learning curve. The configuration wizard takes technicians through basic steps to establish basic settings and get switches running quickly.

In the event of any communication loss, the NT5000 enables the company to re-set switches, themselves, remotely and 
establish new credentials in-house. This is in contrast to competitor switches which need to be retrieved from the field 
and returned to the factory for reflashing, draining resources and interrupting production as a result.

Lead time was also a deciding factor. Red Lion was able to build and ship the products within just four weeks to meet 
company demand

The result

Since installing N-Tron® Series NT5000 managed switches, the company has experienced no communication interruptions or failures, with no associated loss of production or profitability. The NT5000 is now the company’s specification for all managed switches in its network. The company plans to order more NT5000 switches. 

Clay Cearley of ADC spoke with company leaders about the NT5000 implementation. “They’ve fully standardized on this 
product from N-Tron,” says Cearley. “This is the switch they’re going to use from now on.”