SD-WAN
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) is a body representing over 128,000 financial professionals across Australia and New Zealand. Delivering world-class services and education to members, CA ANZ plays an important role in both monitoring and advocating for the ANZ region’s prominent Chartered Accountants. CA ANZ has 13 branch locations, a Sydney-based head office and operates across the Tasman Sea.
Like many organisations CA ANZ saw its technological requirements change rapidly as it embraced more and more Cloud-based applications, to a point where its legacy infrastructure could no longer keep up. In addition, running point-to-point links between Australia and New Zealand was becoming increasingly costly. Faced with these challenges, CA ANZ needed a more efficient and economical network solution that eliminated the enormous spend on links, while remaining secure to the extent that Zero Trust architecture could be implemented across the device space. While CA ANZ was aware that transitioning to SD-WAN could transform its network potential, it was also wary of the fact that not all SD-WAN solutions would offer equal levels of security and efficiency.
To find the best way forward, CA ANZ consulted specialist network and telecommunication vendor management group, Baillieu Consulting, to conduct a global voice review across it’s office and contact centre environments. From this, Baillieu recommended our Managed Secure SD-WAN offering. Sam Baillieu, Managing Director, says this was an easy decision for Baillieu: “NetSG was clearly the best vendor for the job. Not only were they able to provide a flexible solution, this could also be integrated seamlessly with minimal disruption to CA ANZs core network requirements, ensuring greater security, performance and reliability.”
NetSG successfully transitioned CA ANZ to a SD-WAN environment, implementing a complete secure branch solution at 13 locations. Built on FORTINET™ Secure SD-WAN, HP Aruba Switching and Wi-Fi with Aruba ClearPass managed 802.1X to the endpoint, NetSG skillfully implemented the secure branch solution in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns across Australia, New Zealand and internationally, with their extensive field support and remote hands capability.
The outcome was a robust end-to-end SD-WAN solution, delivered seamlessly, on time and on budget, while fully releasing CA ANZ’s vision for a more cost-efficient and secure SD-WAN design. Here are some of the major benefits of the solution according to CA ANZ’s General Manager of Technology, Richard Wiltshire:
It is well known that network-wide implementations can be extremely disruptive to organisations, with continuous outages and downtime getting in the way of productivity. Richard says NetSG was able to eliminate this frustration, providing smooth and stress-free integration with CA ANZ’s existing Aruba platform. By building the SD-WAN solution in isolation and connecting it only once the solution was working to full capacity, the process of migration was exceptionally unobtrusive and non-invasive for CA ANZ, making life easier for its end users – even in the throws of COVID-19.
NetSG’s security-first approach to the SD-WAN network architecture meant CA ANZ could heighten the security of all its devices, company-wide. With FORTINET™ Secure Branch technology, NetSG could build a SD-WAN network with secure Zero Trust architecture by design. This enables CA ANZ to wrap its security layer around all devices, applying the same security logic wherever its employees are – whether that is at home, in the office or elsewhere. With an SD-WAN solution that boasts such deeply ingrained security, Richard feels confident that CA ANZ’s devices will remain protected even as the company’s usage requirements change with time.
Richard is pleased to report that the new SD-WAN solution has resulted in a number of notable cost savings for CA ANZ. Not having to replicate data back and forth over dedicated internet links between locations has resulted in a great return on investment. In addition, the transition to SD-WAN has helped slash CA ANZ’s communication spend, reducing telco costs by approximately 70 per cent. Richard points out that this saving does not take into account the likely increase that would have occurred had the organisation maintained its legacy infrastructure throughout the COVID-19 restriction period. He also believes these savings will continue to accumulate as the organisation grows and expands its data use.
As CA ANZ continues to drive more of its applications to the Cloud, it will require exceedingly faster internet links. NetSG’s SD-WAN solution provides far more robust connectivity by prioritising traffic to locations with Cloud infrastructure, like SalesForce and Office365. Richard has observed that even with many CA ANZ employees returning to the office, there is still a heavy reliance on Cloud-based applications for everyday communications. With more video conversations occurring in-office, there is a sustained pressure onsite for the internet to support high-intensity video connectivity. Despite this, CA ANZ is pleased to report that there have not been any congestion issues whatsoever with NetSG’s SD-WAN solution.
“As more of our applications moved to the Cloud, it became clear that we required much faster internet links. NetSG’s SD-WAN solution delivered this by prioritising traffic to locations with Cloud infrastructure, like SalesForce and Office365. Our connectivity is now stronger, far more reliable and never misses a beat, even with multiple people accessing Cloud-based applications at once.”
Richard Wiltshire
NetSG provides secure, high-performance, managed SD-WAN solutions based on leading FORTINET™ Secure Branch technology. With MPLS-grade performance, seamless connectivity to cloud platforms and competitive connectivity anywhere, we’ll help you meet and exceed your communications needs.
With NetSG, you’ll only ever need to deal with one provider — we have a dedicated team of experts on call, to support you. Plus, our network engineers can manage the design, implementation and migration of your solution, ensuring you enjoy the most seamless transition to SD-WAN imaginable.
Looking to transition to SD-WAN? NetSG can help you realise the benefits of SD-WAN while maintaining visibility, security and control. We’ll tailor your solution to your organisation’s specific needs so you can get the results you’re looking for. Contact us today to learn more.
AAM Group is a global spatial information technology provider that collects, analyses and delivers large sets of data. With 260 staff at 12 locations, AAM provides several data and enterprise solutions, from business mapping to asset and geographical information systems.