The Challenge
With 23 branch locations and connectivity via MPLS, Per Mar’s WAN model was anything but cost effective. Deployment was cumbersome and costly as they typically had to outsource installation services at their remote locations. The management and maintenance of these remote sites required personnel to travel to each office; adding an additional expense to their already costly solution.
“The high cost of our enterprise WAN connectivity was draining our IT budget. We knew we needed a solution that would not only save us a substantial amount of money each month, but also allow us to eliminate our MPLS network altogether and free up our IT support staff to focus on more strategic initiatives. We turned to OneNeck, our trusted IT partner for guidance and support in exploring alternative solutions,” said Dan Turner, Chief Information Officer at Per Mar.
The Solution
After careful analysis with the Per Mar team, it was determined that a Cisco Meraki solution would meet the company’s requirements without requiring in-house expertise.
With Meraki, Per Mar was able to eliminate their MPLS network and connect all of their sites together via Meraki’s VPN mesh technology. The solution consisted of head-end Meraki MX appliances at their primary location and smaller MX appliances at their remote locations. Meraki switches and wireless APs were also deployed across the enterprise.
Once the initial configurations were complete, OneNeck transitioned the responsibility for managing the Meraki solution over to Per Mar’s IT support staff.
The Results
The cost savings of eliminating their MPLS network was substantial. In addition, by implementing the Meraki solution, Per Mar realized the following benefits:
- Easier deployment- Their new Meraki solution was customer installable. Saving them time and money since they no longer had to outsource installation.
- Simplified management and maintenance- Meraki devices selfprovision. In addition, remote sites can be managed via the Meraki dashboard, enabling branch deployments and management without on-site IT.
- Standardized deployment model based on size of office- Merkai helped to eliminate disparate systems and provide a consistent hardware profile across the enterprise, which again improved efficiencies around implementations and ongoing management/ support.
“With OneNeck and Meraki, not only have we been able to reduce management and connectivity costs, but we’ve also been able to increase the speed and reliability of our network, allowing us to continue to provide exceptional customer service and help our clients meet their security needs,“ Turner said.
