WDJ Industrial Group (WDJ) made a decision to break away from their parent company to become a stand-alone entity and provide services to the utility, industrial, and
water/wastewater industries. Although the spinoff allowed WDJ to become a more focused company, it also left them without IT support or an IT infrastructure that could connect their disparate locations and remote sites to key resources. As a technology leader in the industrial and construction space, we helped WDJ leverage Cisco Meraki and HPE technology to build and support a modern IT infrastructure that enabled them to overcome challenges, as well as drive digital transformation across their operation.
The situation, needs, and challenges
After the split from their parent company, WDJ knew they were going to lose most of their IT infrastructure and support. Leadership wanted to act quickly because in addition to their infrastructure and support needs, they were also under the gun to address other business and technology challenges that would come with the transition. Specifically, their needs and challenges included:
- Building a modern IT infrastructure: Rather than just replacing what they lost, they wanted to modernize their IT infrastructure
- Unifying locations under one network: As a growing multi-location business, they needed a flexible, unified network foundation
- Connecting remote sites to resources: They needed a secure way to connect remote construction sites to key internal resources
- Upgrading desktops to Windows 10: The desktops WDJ was left with all required a Windows 7 and productivity software update
- Consolidating to a single IT vendor: They wanted to enable IT cost allocation and simplify management by moving to a single IT vendor
WDJ began searching for IT companies who could help them address these needs and challenges – ultimately narrowing their decision down to Transformyx and one other vendor. After much consideration, WDJ chose us because of our experience and knowledge with business transformation projects of this size.
The Lockstep solution
In addition to appreciating our state-of-the-art facilities, WDJ was impressed with our customer-first approach and the discovery process we followed to truly understand their goals and the way their business functioned. We were able to take that information and show WDJ how Cisco Meraki, HPE, 3CX, and our cloud and managed services would provide a digitally-enabled infrastructure, and a perfect fit for what they wanted to accomplish:
- Cisco Meraki and Duo: Cisco Duo was deployed for two-factor authentication along with Meraki MS120 switches, MR42 access points, and MX67 Firewalls with SD-WAN capabilities and LTE SIM cards to provide secure file access and connectivity for remote construction sites
- HPE servers and Veeam: HPE Tower servers were implemented at their 4 physical locations to host WDJ’s active directory and large production files, as well as run Veeam software for backup both locally and in Transformyx’s secure, industrial-grade data centers
- 3CX hosted voice: A 3CX cloud-based, hosted phone system was rolled out to enhance communication capabilities across their business, increase mobility and productivity of their employees, and lower costs compared to their existing phone system
- Transformyx services: In addition to managing the entire Cisco, HPE, and 3CX infrastructure, we are providing fully-managed desktop support for their 115 employees and rolled out a unified instance of Office 365 and cloud back-up to improve business continuity
After several demonstrations and a proof-of-concept, WDJ approved our solution. We began by creating a map of their existing infrastructure and a roster of their current employees so we could be ready to provide immediate support. During the rollout, our implementation teams also took the time to fix cabling and fiber issues that came with the other infrastructure WDJ had inherited from their parent company.
The results and ultimate benefits
Our solution created a modern IT infrastructure for WDJ with simplified management – and Meraki’s SD-WAN capabilities improved their ability to securely connect employees to key resources anywhere they were working. WDJ continues to see major benefits, and has even contracted us for additional services to continue to build out their best-in-class infrastructure.
IT benefits:
• Secure connection to internal resources from any location
• A cohesive network with single-pane-of-glass management
• Simplified daily management for their IT team
• Improved network speeds and functionality
• Having a single, capable IT vendor to deal with
• More consistent cost structure for IT
• Ability to cost allocate IT to each of their projects
• Improved communication capabilities at every location
Contact us to learn how you can benefit from Cisco Meraki and Lockstep Cloud Services!
