Cisco SD-WAN Implementation
Revolutionize the way we work and build a set of secure base infrastructures designed to leverage the cloud
Industry: Insurance
Location: Mumbai, India
Company Size: 3000
The company was incorporated with the objective of providing retail, commercial, personal and rural insurance solutions to individuals and corporates to help them manage and mitigate risks.
The customer has been serving the customers by leveraging upon its global Insurance expertise in diverse classes of products.
The company has been actively involved in trying to reform work styles by, for example, expanding the scope of telecommuting work arrangements for all employees and allow personnel to work outside of the office. At this particular junction, the customer has made the decision to build a new concept branch office network capable of responding to digital transformation by leveraging changes in working styles, the cloud, and fat applications. As part of its secure base infrastructure project, the company rolled out Cisco’s Catalyst LAN switches and SD- WAN solutions.
Review
Business Challenges
- How to support a wide range of working styles brought on by the spread of telecommuting
- How to respond to fat applications, cloud usage, and other forms of digitalization. Enhance security measures to protect the assets of a financial institution
Network Solutions
- Cisco Catalyst Switches and SD- WANs in the head office as well as the branch offices
- Konverge Technical Services for project management, requirements definitions, configuration, and support
Business Results
- Installed LAN switches and SD-WANs at the head office
- Initiated a plan and process to continuously expand similar connectivity to all branch offices
- Continuous advancement of software-defined networking (SDN) through the cloud
Business Challenges
The customer, explains the thought process behind it all. “Since nearly 10 years ago, the company has conducted business using wired LAN connections and desktop-style thin client terminals. However, the new terminal requirements, which came about as part of the work-style reform process, included items such as laptop PCs, wireless LAN, Internet connectivity directly from the terminals, etc. – requirements which were completely different from those that had been defined to date. We strongly felt an impending sense of danger if we did not consider new network solutions, as our present network, which had been built to cater to thin clients, would not be able to adequately respond to the newly defined requirements. We felt SD- WAN was one such possible solution for our problems.”
Cisco Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is a solution that can create WANs using a variety of connectivity types, such as MPLS, Internet, and 4G LTE, and it also enhances the user experience as well as WAN deployment agility.
Several years ago, the customer, saw the need for a new network that served to enhance not only security but also usability.
“One thing we wanted to accomplish with the new branch office-level network was to create a network that could isolate data traffic per the business requirements and also guarantee stable operations when carrying out important workflows. We felt that using SD-WAN would allow us to quickly and efficiently achieve this goal,” explained the customer.
SD-WAN and Catalyst LAN switches deployment were executed simultaneously in order to revolutionize the branch-level network.
Network solutions
The main deciding factor behind selecting Cisco’s solutions was security.
“The single largest deciding factor was security,” said the customer. “One of the keys, underlying assumptions we had with respect to the new, to-be-built infrastructure was that it would be complete with over-the-top security features. Cisco develops its security solutions in-house, and it is also involved in service roll-out. The breadth and depth of this expertise far outstripped that of the competition. I think the fact that Cisco proactively presented security- related requirements for financial institutions during the consideration phase was another reason we eventually went with Cisco.”
Business results
Operation of a secure base infrastructure leveraging wired LANs and SD-WANs, and that is capable of isolating transmissions per applications, such as thin clients and Cisco WebEx®, commenced. The customer, comments that he truly felt the impact of the work that had been done when an update on his terminal following the network construction prompted a massive download. “Being able to isolate traffic with SD-WANs is most effective. There was zero impact on key processes during the update, and I didn’t even notice the download and installation until I saw on the log a few days later that the update had been completed.” There are plans over the next few months to roll out the same solution to all locations.
SDWAN Solution Advantage
- Application based routing – Microsoft 0365 and other cloud-based application was routed via Internet link through NAT DIA functionality.
- Latency based failover for traffic – Corporate application for and database access was prioritized. In case, the WAN link faces issues, the application was routed via other WAN transport.
- Reduce Deployment Complexity – Configuring SDWAN simplifies deployment as the GUI provides ease of administration and configuration. The administrators don’t need to configure complex commands. This provides operational simplicity.
- Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) – New sites can be enabled as easily as just plugging an Internet link with DHCP enabled. With ZTP sites can communicate with the SDWAN controllers and fetch the configuration from the centralized server. This helps in reducing cost of deploying sites.
- Single Pane Monitoring – Whole SDWAN fabric can be monitored via single dashboard, which saves on additional cost of Network Monitoring tools. Along with WAN circuits we can the visibility of the user application access.
