Customer Profile – Auto Manufacturer
This global company provides manufacturing and custom engineering solutions for automakers through its 30+ facilities, strategically located across nine countries to help address customer requirements with speed, efficiency, and flexibility. Known for designing customer-centric solutions, not just auto parts, the manufacturer offers full-service, in-house expertise on the aluminum and lightweight materials that solve complex mobility problems for the automotive industry. The company continues to grow organically and through acquisitions that enhance its existing global infrastructure and improve its ability to better serve its customers.
Business Challenges
This auto parts manufacturer encountered business and technical hurdles after acquiring a new company. The company’s existing network infrastructure created operational obstacles to their expansion plans. Key areas the manufacturer needed to focus on included:
- Rapid Growth: The acquisition added new customers and nine new sites across the US, the EMEA region, and China.
- Non-Standard Network Architecture: The customer’s infrastructure connected 25 existing sites via a mix of MPLS and Internet/IPsec technologies, along with limited WAN optimization point solutions.
- Accelerated Timeline: With pressure to integrate the new sites quickly, the company recognized that it needed to implement a global SD-WAN solution to support the integration of a wide range of applications and business processes.
The Globalgig Solution
The customer utilized their network of consultants and partners, each with a core competency in different parts of the technology stack, including servers, storage, LAN, and Wi-Fi. Globalgig provided the upfront consultancy and expertise for SD-WAN and WAN-edge delivery.
Globalgig designed a custom, robust network infrastructure to support the company’s growing requirements, simplify the integration of newly- acquired sites, and establish a foundation for connecting its U.S. and China locations in the future. Globalgig took a strategic approach to deliver comprehensive, global connectivity by implementing the customer’s new Palo Alto Prisma¹ SD-WAN platform, which included:
- Using a staged process to move each site from simple connectivity to full network optimization—starting with wireless/LTE, then adding broadband, then fiber access, achieving incremental quality and resiliency gains at every step.
- Running the new SD-WAN solution alongside the existing network infrastructure during integration—a fast, non-intrusive implementation process that didn’t impact daily operations.
- Simultaneously implementing SD-WAN in China, providing immediate in- country internet service while also laying the groundwork to connect the China locations to ERP stacks in the US.
Results – Gaining A More Scalable, Streamlined Network
By combining deep SD-WAN expertise with an innovative and flexible approach to implementation, Globalgig delivered a global network foundation for the auto manufacturer in record time, providing multi-country connectivity with wireless and broadband service options. Through its partnership with Globalgig, the customer realized critical advantages:
- The integration of the acquired company’s network was smoothly transitioned to the new SD-WAN platform without operational impact. This gave the company’s IT staff time to focus on core business process integration.
- The network simplicity and scalability to accommodate future expansion and support aggressive growth goals.
- A streamlined approach to network management, with a single-source solution for managed global networking, supported by one network operations center and customer care team.