Issue link: https://insights.oneneck.com/i/1226661
DEPLOYING AND MANAGING THE NETWORK One week, Victra was preparing to open nearly 10 stores all at on when Stanton and his team decided to put Meraki to the test. Lead Systems Admin Joseph Rivera-Santiago led the trial with Meraki MX Security Appliances and MS Switches. Rivera-Santiago spun up the location in half a day, discovering the MX Auto-VPN feature, which enables site-to-site VPN across branches within minutes. Once they realized how easy it was, they hit the ground running. was to change IP addresses and the devices were ready to go. The team could then just ship the appliances with documentation to any non-technical store manager or employee and the appliances would still be up and running. They had never experienced such a smooth deployment process. With the previous networking solution, Victra would have accrued pre and post activity for onsite installations. The legacy solution would have req installer is non-technical. With hundreds of remote locations, Victra would have expected to see incremental charges for onsite contractors, hourly wages, and trip fees. Fully aware of the frustration that comes with installing and deploying across multiple remote sites, Meraki focuses a great deal on creating a simple and intuitive boxing and un-boxing experience in a step-by-step order that helps with a smooth installation process. The actual installation with Meraki only takes about 30 minutes, especially if the WAN connectivity is already established at the time of installation. the previous network versus with Meraki, Victra saved 70% in overall deployment costs, which is detailed in Table 3. This takes into account estimated hourly costs necessary for Network Engineers and Hardware Installers needed for in-store setup. That means for the additional 500 stores still set to launch, with Meraki, it would cost $57,500 compared to the previous solution which would have cost them $190,000 in total. Assumed hourly cost for Network Engineer (including travel fees): $150 Assumed hourly cost for Hardware Installer: $80 MERAKI PREVIOUS TASK TIME (HRS) COST/YR TIME (HRS) COST/YR 0.5 $75 2 $300 Hardware installation per store 0.5 $40 1 $80 Total deployment costs per store $115 $380 Deployment costs 70% lower with Meraki TABLE 3 - TOTAL DEPLOYMENT COSTS PER STORE user bandwidth, limiting usage on social media and streaming sites. The prior solution used to block URLs with a tool that seemed like a "hieroglyphic language no one understands." It was also very easy to bypass. With Meraki, the team can block websites or ports and apply policy settings to 1,200 endpoints within 5 minutes while still ensuring more on selling phones. Prior to Meraki, "troubleshooting didn't really exist at Victra," so having the ability to see and monitor event logs easily through the Dashboard, a web-based interface that manages Meraki cloud-based was a key factor in deciding to move forward with Meraki since networking costs are not just calculated by hardware, but also time and resources for maintenance and management. Cisco Systems, Inc. | 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94158 | (415) 432-1000 | sales@meraki.com 3