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"If corporate went down today, MMS would be inaccessible," says senior network architect Brad Clark.

The IT staff speaks from experience. Last year, construction crews cut Life Time's copper lines six times, killing connectivity for as long as half a day each time. And Qwest's central office has a tendency to flood in the spring and fall seasons, draining Life Time of all voice and data connectivity, says Rob Mendel, director of Life Time's IT operations.

Life Time's Schaumburg, Ill., center is a quasihub for the Chicago region, terminating connections but not housing applications or data. It connects to the clubs via a shared 256-Kbps frame relay link rather than T1s, Clark says, making connection speeds less than blazing. A dial-up ISDN line from Ameritech serves as a backup.

The data center and links will be in place by year's end. Next will be Michigan's five clubs, which will take on the same architecture by the end of first quarter 2003.

Because Life Time has few clubs in Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Arizona, those sites will have a different architecture. They will rely on the public Internet, secured via VPNs, replacing the expensive point-to-point T1s that connect them back to headquarters today, Clark says. Relying on the Internet for vital business links without serious SLAs is arguably a risky business decision. However, a dedicated 256-Kbps connection from Tempe, Ariz., to Eden Prairie would cost about $2,500 per month, Clark says. Ultimately, Life Time expects these regions to have enough clubs to warrant a hub architecture similar to the Chicago one.

Current Network Topology Click here to enlarge

Life Time also replaced the copper wires in Eden Prairie with two fiber optic connections, each originating from a different switch and linked to a separate central office for redundancy. The company negotiated a deal to avoid an up-front charge of about $20,000 for running the fiber by having Qwest amortize the cost into monthly payments, which run about $3,500.

The new architecture--which Clark calls a "distributed hub and spoke"--affords Life Time more options at the edge while maintaining a reliable core. "The end points are flexible in that we can use whatever technology makes sense at the time of deployment, but the core will be dedicated leased lines and high bandwidth," Clark says. Flexibility is key because adding six new clubs per year requires setting up six additional temporary sites with full connectivity back to headquarters. That's because about half a year before a new club opens, Life Time sets up shop in a triple-wide trailer to sell preopening memberships. Each temporary office needs a dedicated frame relay connection and at least a dozen phone lines.

Savings Via VoIP

Life Time is deploying IP telephony in all new locations, eliminating the need for traditional PBXs--a savings of about $240,000 per year for six new clubs, Mendel says. Life Time uses Cisco's CallManager with consulting from network integrator Enventis (see our Sneak Preview of CallManager). There are some 250 IP phones in use in Eden Prairie, where users enjoy integrated voice- and e-mail. A central database makes it possible to identify a caller immediately and have his or her record pop up on screen. As sites add IP telephony, Life Time may incorporate "follow the sun" call center management, in which calls can be routed to other regions during off-hours. However, Mendel says concerns about VoIP's quality and reliability make him reluctant to roll it out enterprisewide. Instead, he's running a mix of analog and IP equipment. IP calls are currently routed over frame relay lines. As locations are added, Life Time will keep a close watch on quality and focus on SLAs.

"We would like to see [IP telephony] become more stable," he says. "It's better than it was two years ago, but it will be even better two years from now."

Future Network Topology Click here to enlarge

Even as Life Time takes control of its network, it's increasingly eyeing outsourcing. CEO Bahram Akradi has capped IT staffing and budgets at current levels for the foreseeable future. "We have to be smarter as we grow to 75 sites to figure out an appropriate mix of outsource vs. insource," Mendel says. However, Mendel and Clark are confident they can operate at least two data centers, in Chicago and Texas, by training IT employees already deployed in those regions to manage the data centers. And the move to OC-3 and eventually OC-12 will give Life Time enough bandwidth for VoIP as well as videoconferencing and e-learning, Clark says. "We're striving to build a multiservice network."