BANGKOK--4 Jan--Xinhua-PRNewswire-AsiaNet/InfoQuest Datacraft, the region's leading independent IT solutions and services company, has completed a two-month, US$1 million project to re-engineer the core network supporting the operations of Unocal in Thailand, a subsidiary of Chevron. This upgrade brings Unocal's network in line with the oil-giant's global IT standards and delivers improved performance and quality-of-service. Chevron bought oil-and-gas exploration company, Unocal, in a U$17 billion cash-and-stock deal in August 2005. Unocal has significant energy reserves in the Gulf of Thailand, which is its primary gas-producing area outside the United States, with gross production averaging more than 1.0 billion cubic feet per day from 100 production platforms. "Making changes to a core network is always delicate. When that network supports production of natural gas used to generate 30 per cent of Thailand's electrical power, you need to have a lot of confidence in the network engineering team," said Choompon Nopmongkhon, Telecommunication and Networks Team Lead, Chevron (Thailand) Ltd. "Datacraft followed up its excellent proof-of-concept with a flawless project execution, fully validating the trust we placed in them." Datacraft topped Chevron Thailand's evaluation in almost all categories, including technical consulting, project management and, of course, the migration plan. "Energy exploration and production is a highly data-intensive business which in turns generates a lot of data traffic and volume across the network." said Somchart Kanha, Country Manager, Datacraft Thailand. "Working with the Chevron in-house team, we were able to engineer a non-disruptive change at the very heart of the network. Not only does this resolve the performance and reliability issues that had been manifesting themselves, it also lays a solid foundation for optimising traffic flows across Chevron's LAN and WAN infrastructures." The new Unocal Thailand core network is based on a pair of high-availability 10 Gigabit per second Ethernet switches that integrate advanced security features and have a modular architecture to accommodate future capacity upgrades. This strong core also enables superior quality-of-service management to better support mission-critical applications and, in the future, voice-over-IP. The contract has no material impact on this financial year. About Datacraft Datacraft is the leading independent IT services and solutions company in Asia Pacific. The company helps clients plan, build and support their IT infrastructures. Datacraft combines an expertise in networking, security, operating environments, storage and contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration and managed services, to craft IT solutionsfor businesses. A member of the Dimension Data Group, Datacraft is listed on the main board if the Singapore Exchange and is a component company of the Straits Times Index. Headquartered in Singapore, Datacraft spans more than 50 major offices and has over 1,200 employees across 13 Asia Pacific markets. More information can be found at www.datacraft-asia.com Media Contacts Datacraft Asia Waraporn Wangsiri Executive, Corporate Communications & Brand Management Tel: +662-625-0920 Email: [email protected] BeeKee Lim Manager, Corporate Communications & Brand Management Tel: +65-6322-6605 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Datacraft --Distributed by AsiaNet ( www.asianetnews.net )--