Cisco Meraki specific to a unique operational environment

Cisco Meraki allows us to interconnect multiple WAN networks and manage them securely through an easy-to-use web portal. We can seamlessly update and edit firewall rules from a single portal and control and manage the security of our company effortlessly. We have confidence in the brand and the security this brings our organization.

A single point to troubleshoot multiple networks, quickly, making the company more efficient with less downtime allowing operators to focus on the OT side of the business. Confidence in security and scalable networks at the click of a mouse. Easy to manage and deploy devices that integrate together uniting the company across huge geographical terrain.

We have successfully implemented a hybrid work from home solution for over 12 months now. Like most companies the need for staff to work from home was paramount during the pandemic. We began using Meraki VPNs to allow staff to connect to our networks. We also created multiple VPN tunnels and VLANs to link all of our offices and have one fluid internal system linking us all. Staff can efortlessly work from home now as though they are in the office.

Most of issue we faced came from home networks. We basically had to make sure make sure out networks were secure and all devices that staff were connecting from were also secure before allowing them on to our corporate networks. We had to increase all areas for staff who were now connecting to our networks from outside the building. We manage all client VPNs and review every user who has access to them. We have firewall rules deployed limiting functionality for specific devices on our networks. We use port blocking so that only specific functionality can be utilized and accessed on the networks, or across the client VPN.

It gave us full scalability across our workforce which is spread across North America. SD-WAN capability pulled everything together and gave us the complete solution required for staff to continue to work in a seemless fashion. We also know that we have continued security and have built rules out for all our networks that can easily be managed via the Meraki dashboard. We also had to learn on our feet to make exceptions for devices/ports that we were not familiar with. In the end we have a good process in place that was greatly enhanced by our MX devices and MR devices.

Seemless, effortless transition to the new work from home hybrid model. Staff can communicate, collaborate and achieve the same golas that they could when they were all in a board room. We effortlessly have team meetings and haven't missed a beat since deploying our hybrid model. IT have been able to scale up/down as required and can manage user access at the click of a button via the online dashboard.

There are many other products on the market that may allow you to achieve the same overall environment. We chose Cisco as it's a market leader. It may not be the cheapest, as you have licensing on top of the device cost. However, you get what you pay for and with Cisco you certainly get quality and ease of use. We have a complete device list for each site, we can manage our tunnels, subnets, clients, security all via one dashboar.