Hexcel takes flight to Level 3’s cloud

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) firm Level three has been chosen by advanced composites firm Hexcel to provide IP VPN and cloud services to support its global expansion.

Hexcel, which manufactures materials for use in aerospace and industry, will use Level 3’s Ethernet IP VPN to replace legacy frame relay switched connections.

The company has also opted to use Level 3’s new European data centre, based in Hayes, West London, for collocation services. This will provide redundancy facilities that will allow critical services to remain online in the event of any on-premise outages.

“Part of the reason Hexcel chose us is because they wanted their hosted services on a tier one internet backbone, which they see as being really fundamental," Tim Passingham, director of enterprise at Level 3, told Cloud Pro.

“Level 3 is one of the few organisations that offers direct Amazon Web Services (AWS) connectivity and one of even fewer that can go to every single AWS connection from a network point of view and we are dedicated to providing high bandwidth connectivity into those services,"

“This means we can enable enterprises’ transition from a private to a public cloud, or a hybrid environment,” he added.

Patrick Winterlich, vice president and CIO at Hexcel Corporation said in a statement: “We chose Level 3 because the company’s global network reach provides us with numerous options in terms of regional and technical development.

“We were impressed by the company’s capabilities to provide Ethernet connections to the vast majority of our sites. Level 3’s secure global IP network services also provide us with high-level visibility of all traffic and a single point of contact,” Winterlich concluded.