Customer Profile – Chemical Manufacturer
The company provides products and technologies that purify, protect and enhance the world. The company operates in three reporting segments: Performance Chemicals, Advanced Polymer Technologies and Performance Materials. The products are used in in a variety of demanding applications, including adhesives, agrochemicals, asphalt paving, bioplastics, coatings, elastomers, lubricants, pavement markings, publication inks, oil exploration and production and automotive components that reduce gasoline vapor emissions.
Business Challenges
A chemical manufacturer with facilities across the globe, operated a multicarrier 25-site MPLS network with applications single-threaded to each site, creating significant operational challenges.
- Frequent Outages: The company experienced frequent outages on its MPLS network across multiple carriers’ networks, yet there seemed to be little urgency to resolve problems or generate Reason for Outage documentation.
- Limited Application Availability: Staff outside the U.S. could only reach U.S.-based application instances via the MPLS network, which resulted in slow performance and high local access costs.
- Global Impact: Every time a network outage occurred in China, data from the ERP system hosted in the U.S. was unavailable.
- Reduced Productivity: Constant outages, slow resolution, and poor performance all hampered productivity, which was particularly problematic as the company’s reliance on cloud-based applications increased.
The manufacturer attempted to solve these issues by contracting a carrier specific SD-WAN solution, but after six months of work, the carrier was unable to meet the requirements.
The Globalgig Solution
The company knew it needed a platform to deliver the network reliability and performance its global workforce required. It evaluated various options, including leading SD-WAN platform solutions from large U.S. carriers. Globalgig worked closely with the manufacturer to understand requirements and project goals, providing an unbiased view on SD-WAN platforms and global technology trends. The company ultimately chose Globalgig as its partner for the project. Globalgig recommended a carrier independent SD-WAN solution built on the Palo Alto CloudGenix platform.¹
The custom-engineered solution was uniquely designed to the manufacturer’s operational requirements, including customer co-management. The SD-WAN platform provided:
- A single, unified global control plane
- Application layer visibility via AppFabric for improved network intelligence from day one²
- An internet-based global network with dual, diverse carriers and last-mile loop providers
- Application-aware, best-path routing that leverages all connections simultaneously for better performance and uptime
- Integration with the customer’s global Palo Alto firewalls, enabling offloaded routing intelligence, standardization, and scalable security policy
Results – Lower Costs, Better Uptime and Performance
By partnering with Globalgig to upgrade its global network, the customer gained a nimble, high performance, cloud-first SD-WAN network infrastructure that delivers significant benefits, including:
- A 40% reduction in overall network expenses
- Improved resiliency through dual connections at each location, providing carrier diversity
- A better end-user experience, thanks to dramatically improved network reliability and performance
- Mitigation against changes to internet policies in China, using hubbed Ethernet private lines out of the country
- Increased network throughput to drive and support the manufacturer’s adoption of IaaS and SaaS applications
- Resilient network connectivity across the global network, including significant network enhancements in China
The customer also benefited from working with a single provider to meet its global network needs; one with the unique ability to provide strategic guidance, make unbiased technology recommendations, and deliver the optimal solution for the manufacturer’s operating environment.