British Petroleum

The Challenge:

In support of the IT modernisation and digitisation strategy for BP, a Network Transformation was required to deliver a future mode of network operations, supporting agile working, automation, address End of Life component risks and deliver an upgraded network in order to improve user experience as well as aligning to the Cloud First and Mobile First corporate strategic imperatives.

BP’s Network Services manages one of the top ten largest non-carrier, non-governmental networks in the world, with a scope including:

• 630 Sites across 75 countries
• 11k non-retail network devices
• Networks supporting 15,000 fuel stations
• 175 third-party connections to 325 internet points-of-presence
• 400 private network interconnection points, to networks supporting six datacentres and cloud networks across AWS and Azure, across one of the largest private IP spaces in the world
• Future Mode of Operation structure of approximately 63 FTEs in direct support, plus indirect control of 300+ third-party partner FTEs across 11 countries 

Cambridge MCs involvement: 

Provided a programme manager to manage the execution of a Network Procurement Strategy, to propose an agreed reference architecture for the Next Generation Network to take advantage of software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technologies and the adoption of Next Generation Office infrastructure (i.e. agile service management, orchestration, automation, virtualisation etc) in order to deliver an evergreen, fully elastic, agile and globally consistent and secure set of Network Services.

This initiative was called Site of the Future which is a constituent part of a wider Network Transformation Programme (NTP).

The initiative also considered a DevOps Experiment that demonstrated the benefits of an agile relationship between Architecture & Development and Network Services Operations. The goal of the experiment was to continuously improve this agile relationship by advocating better communication and collaboration between the two business functions, whilst adopting technologies and tooling that enhanced the abilities to promote extensive orchestration and automation of the IT Infrastructure, across the entire enterprise. 

This initiative included the stakeholder management of IT&S Directors, Category Sourcing Leadership, Senior Enterprise Architects, BP Digital Security, and other key BP business stakeholders. The scope was broadened to include the implementation of a new Global Network Manager into the BP service-management eco-system.

Our knowledge and skills provided:

• A seasoned Programme Manager, with a demonstrably good track record of delivery in a heavily matrixed organisation
• An ITIL specialist to assist with formulating a new operating model for Network Services

The results: 

• Implemented a new Global Network Manager into the BP service management eco-system, that is now responsible for the management of 11k devices in 361 locations, in over 50 countries 
• Completed the campus transformation of 40 locations, at the point that our involvement ended