This life sciences organization upgraded its network and saved 30%

A global company needs partners with a global reach.

When one international life sciences organization set out to refresh its systems around the globe, it wasn’t sure its partner was up to the task.

While its partner at the time was reliable in the commodity hardware space, that same partner struggled with strategic vendors and lacked the technical resources for advancing and innovating projects internationally as well as general infrastructure maintenance.

That wasn’t going to work as the organization needed help at sites in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Given the circumstances, the organization was seriously considering putting its entire global solution under one umbrella. But it wasn’t going to hand the reins off to just any partner.

The partner needed to have proven global capabilities. It also needed to have a good relationship with Cisco, as the life sciences organization was a Cisco networking house and had every intention of maintaining that partnership.

As it turns out, SHI UK had already been in contact with the organization, and upon learning about these difficulties, it believed it could help.

Evaluating the client’s infrastructure and identifying its needs

The initial scoping call centered around IT.

SHI learned that the life sciences organization’s current infrastructure was an older legacy system with limited policy automation capabilities. It was getting harder to manage because of rising maintenance costs and the lack of available replacement components.

The legacy environment was also severely impeding the organization’s digital strategy. Employees found the network to be too slow, and the Wi-Fi constantly dropped.

The organization wanted a future-proof solution that took a more software-defined approach that would make things easier for its small IT team spread out across the globe.

With U.S., UK, and Asia-Pacific (APAC) divisions in place, SHI knew it was up for the task. The next step was designing a solution that would be more cost effective than the organization’s current standards (legacy 3850 switches with small set APs).

Working with Cisco to create the perfect solution

Following the initial conversation, SHI began collaborating with Cisco to create the right solution. Together, they provided the organization with three options:

1. A replica solution of its current environment
2. A full Meraki solution
3. A full Catalyst 9K solution

Since the organization’s IT team would be managing the operation globally, SHI led with the full Meraki solution.

The company appreciated that the solution would give it instant onboarding access to all features inside the Meraki dashboard and that the web-browser-based tool could be used to monitor and configure Meraki devices and services remotely. The solution was also nearly 44% cheaper than the company’s current standards.

However, as much as the life sciences organization liked this solution, the timing wasn’t right.

Plan B? No problem.

Unbeknownst to SHI, the organization had recently invested in VMware’s VeloCloud for SD-WAN, which would conflict with the full Meraki stack environment.

Fortunately, SHI had a Plan B ready to go. The Catalyst 9K solution with advantage licensing was the perfect fit for the organization’s needs. Best of all, this solution cost 28% less than its current infrastructure.

The organization implemented infrastructure that was quick and easy to maintain, and SHI had no trouble delivering kits to various international sites in Europe.

SHI met the organization’s every need, which is why the organization awarded SHI UK the global rollout and is now considering SHI for its global HPE server rollout. Now this is a global partnership with staying power.