Every company wants to grow. But growth and expansion come at a price, because new IT infrastructure has to be planned and provided for each new location. Especially when financial and human resources are limited , a new branch in the network quickly becomes a challenge for the IT team. However, with the right tools, technologies and partners, the best can be made of the resources.
This is exactly what we learned from EGU when we opened a new branch in a new city. We are a German wholesale company for electrical engineering for the construction industry. Our offices and distribution centers across Germany were previously connected via VPN technology. However, in 2021 we undertook a major upgrade to our infrastructure to enable better network stability and easier growth.
It Began with an eye-opening meeting
I am part of a team of ten IT experts who are there for 500 employees at 38 locations across Germany. In addition to IT infrastructure and security, we take care of enterprise applications, Active Directory, group policies, Windows server management and our Microsoft 365 environment.
Unfortunately, our VPN infrastructure was neither stable nor particularly powerful. We were experiencing signal loss and regular disconnections, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Our network was also a drag. We were unable to use modern technologies such as remote management, software deployments or updates in our branch offices because we needed more bandwidth and couldn't secure our endpoints.
We therefore looked at various upgrade options, in particular a faster DSL. We were put in touch with RIEDEL Networks We agreed to talk about the high-speed DSL solutions that RIEDEL is known for. The sales people from RIEDEL also introduced us to their entire product portfolio, including Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Meraki. That was a real eye-opening moment: although we were familiar with these technologies, it would never have occurred to us to use them to replace our VPN. The proof of concept then took place in March 2021.
We started with a pilot project at a single branch office. RIEDEL provided a central device and a device for the branch office. We set up a test environment and met regularly with RIEDEL to discuss the results. After the test phase, which lasted a few months, we started rolling out Cisco SD-WAN and Meraki across our entire organization. By Christmas 2021, we had successfully migrated the infrastructure for all existing branches.
Efficient project managers got us up and running
RIEDEL supported our team in getting started with Cisco Meraki and the management platform. An important aspect of this was the monitoring and evaluation of network usage and performance using the Cisco Cloud Networking Dashboard.
Although RIEDEL manages our infrastructure, the network is completely transparent to us and we can contact RIEDEL at the first sign of a problem. We also have the opportunity to make change requests. If network performance drops, a device fails or a branch needs more bandwidth, we can pinpoint the problem and ask RIEDEL to fix it (if it hasn't already been fixed).
Since the rollout, there have been no more disconnections to branch offices. This is a significant improvement compared to our old infrastructure, where it happened from time to time that individual branch offices were offline for several hours or even entire regions were cut off and we had to wait until our provider had solved the problem and restored the connection. With Cisco SD-WAN, such problems no longer occur. If a network segment goes offline, RIEDEL redirects the traffic to our LTE backup while RIEDEL takes care of restoring the connection. Our high-availability infrastructure is stable, reliable and has a guaranteed availability of 99.9%. That's simply light years ahead of our VPN.
"Some vendors sell technology. Others show you a solution."
The project managers at RIEDEL were fantastic. It was a real challenge for our small team to migrate 38 branch offices, but RIEDEL didn't leave us alone at any step. The people there are just great, and that was also a decisive factor in our good cooperation. They are very knowledgeable about Cisco SD-WAN and Meraki and took the time to understand our business requirements.
Some vendors sell a technology, but RIEDEL showed us the solution. RIEDEL's engineers optimized our network according to our business goals and processes, installed the necessary hardware and software, and handed over the keys to my team. The normal network management is in the hands of EGU, and RIEDEL steps in as soon as something goes wrong or an update is due. It's just a pleasure to work with such professionals.
The next steps: Cisco Umbrella and AnyConnect
As part of the deployment of our new network, we also introduced Cisco Umbrella as a cloud security solution. The solution is very transparent for us, while the end users don't notice anything. No additional hardware was required. Based on a combination of DNS-based protection functions, Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and machine learning, it ensures that unsafe network destinations and malware attacks are blocked at an early stage.
Cisco Umbrella provides us with a flexible, cloud-based security solution that does not overburden our IT team. Despite the high level of automation - from deployments and monitoring to test scripts - we have full access control to the security protocols. We can manually monitor network traffic and, if necessary, block incoming and outgoing communication and set up consistent rules. The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) concept is implemented in a state-of-the-art way with Cisco Umbrella, which integrates seamlessly with Cisco SD-WAN and Meraki.
In October 2022, we also launched a Cisco AnyConnect pilot project to secure the endpoints of our new Office 365 users. We are still in the test phase here and expect the company-wide rollout to coincide with the Office 365 project.
A major advantage of using multiple Cisco solutions is that they work together seamlessly. Instead of laboriously making products from multiple providers compatible via APIs, we now have a single, centralized management tool with which we can manage and configure our entire IT infrastructure with just a few clicks and via intuitive dashboards. There is also a clear division of labor. We manage Cisco Umbrella and AnyConnect internally, while RIEDEL is responsible for our SD-WAN, DSL connectivity and LTE backup.
RIEDEL helps EGU move faster
The partnership with RIEDEL Networks enables EGU to act faster. When we recently opened a new branch, RIEDEL set up the infrastructure and SD-WAN connection within two weeks. We already had the necessary standard rules and policies in place, so we were able to get up and running straight away - important for the ongoing business. As we continue to grow, we can easily replicate this process by expanding our SD-WAN network with new Meraki switches at new branch offices and working with RIEDEL to configure and secure each site. With precise policies and procedures, we are able to set up infrastructure at the push of a button.
"With clear policies and procedures in place, you can deploy new infrastructure at a push of a button."
Using Cisco technology, RIEDEL helped us simplify things, assign roles to internal and external resources and improve the effectiveness of our IT team. Together, we achieved our milestones and transformed the EGU network. The migration from VPN to Cisco SD-WAN has been a resounding success and a joy for my team, and I'm proud of everything we've accomplished together with RIEDEL. Technology can be frustrating, but RIEDEL was the perfect partner to help us upgrade our infrastructure on the road to growth.
