SAN FRANCISCO - May 15, 2007 - Yipes Enterprises Services, Inc., today announced that Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Associates, one of the country's largest and most prestigious law firms, has deployed Yipes' managed Ethernet service globally, across 22 offices in four continents and four data centers. Using Yipes' Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) meshed network, Skadden has seamlessly migrated away from its legacy wide area network (WAN), enabling it to improve network and application performance. The firm currently runs Citrix and voice applications across the Yipes network and plans to run video applications.

 

Skadden has been selected as the best corporate law firm in America for six years running, according to Corporate Board Member - July/August 2006. The firm has been a Yipes customer since 2002, when it chose Yipes to connect its data centers. In 2006, Skadden undertook an initiative to replace its existing Frame Relay and ATM WAN and serve its locations with an entirely new Ethernet-based solution that enables converged voice, video, and data applications, provides any-to-any connectivity and seamlessly integrates with Skadden's Layer 3 MPLS implementation. Skadden selected Yipes based on the quality of Yipes' network and its consistently strong customer service. The firm has centralized all data in centers in Ohio, New York, London and Tokyo; these data centers are accessed by employees in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia.

 

"Migrating to Ethernet was essential to ensuring our network could serve our future needs," said Philip Talamas, manager global technology operations, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. "We chose Yipes because it was the best global VPLS Ethernet provider offering a fully managed service. Yipes offers the best SLAs in the industry. We've created a true partnership with Yipes, not just a vendor-client relationship. We see the company as an integral part of our evolution and growth."

 

Service and Application Needs Drive Search for Network Solution
Skadden wanted to replace its hybrid Frame Relay and ATM network to support the need for more scalable bandwidth and to allow any office to communicate directly with any other office. The law firm was also experiencing service reliability problems. With 1,700 attorneys and 4,000 employees worldwide, the large firm determined that a new Layer 2 network could solve network management issues and more easily integrate its Ethernet-based local area network (LAN) environment. All Skadden locations use voice over IP (VoIP), so the firm needed a solution that provides office-to-office connectivity with minimal latency and jitter. The firm evaluated several Layer 2 providers and found that most did not provide a fully managed service and lacked the provisioning flexibility that would enable them to scale bandwidth to Skadden's business needs within minutes, not months.

 

Skadden found that Yipes was the only Layer 2 provider to offer a fully managed global VPLS Ethernet service. Furthermore, the YipesCARESM web portal gives Skadden the flexibility to scale bandwidth in 1 Mbps increments at any location and receive it in as little as five minutes. The firm also found that Yipes Ethernet-based service offered the lowest latency, or data transmission round-trip time. As a result of selecting Yipes, the end user's experience with real-time applications such as voice has improved. Additionally, Yipes provides a single point of contact to manage multiple carrier vendors around the world for Skadden, minimizing the impact on the firm's IT staff.

 

Yipes' Customer Support Give It the Edge
Customer support was another differentiator cited by Skadden in its selection of Yipes. Skadden and Yipes have had a close working relationship for several years. Yipes was able to create a custom solution that is fully integrated into Skadden's processes and can grow with the firm.

 

According to Talamas, "Yipes is committed to our success and has a world-class network operations and service delivery organization. Yipes does what it takes to get the job done. They've proven themselves in tough situations from New York to Beijing."

 

"Skadden's deployment offers a true demonstration of the capabilities of Yipes' innovative VPLS Ethernet service," said Kamran Sistanizadeh, chief technology officer of Yipes. "We're providing every office and every data center, no matter where it's located, with the service it needs to participate fully in Skadden's global business. As Yipes continues to expand its global presence, we will continue to support Skadden as their networking needs grow."

 

Yipes' Global VPLS Service
VPLS is an MPLS application that allows geographically dispersed sites to share an Ethernet domain. Yipes' backbone network is based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), which provides robust and sophisticated QoS-based traffic management strategies. Deployed over an MPLS platform, VPLS provides the reliability, security, and ease of use of Ethernet along with the scalability, multipoint-to-multipoint support, and resiliency of MPLS.

 

About Yipes Enterprise Services, Inc.
Yipes is the leading provider of managed Ethernet and application delivery services for the global enterprise. Yipes' custom data networking solutions empower businesses by delivering high performance, dynamic control, unmatched service quality, and rapid ROI. Enterprise customers worldwide take advantage of Yipes' managed Ethernet services because they are easier to implement and manage than other services. Yipes' specialized offerings and obsession with customer satisfaction ensure that the company delivers the best quality experience. More than 900 enterprise customers worldwide rely on Yipes high-performance managed services to improve their competitive advantage. For more information, visit < a href="http://www.yipes.com">www.yipes.com.

 

Contact:
Kristin Kiltz
Engage PR
510-748-8200 x204

 

Contact:
Tracy McCabe
Yipes Enterprise Services
415-901-2223