Eliminating Network Outages

Problem Situation

Myron Steves is an independent managing general agency and wholesaler working with overseas carriers that do not seek to be admitted in a state but are providing insurance services to customers in the U.S. To appropriately service customers, Myron Steves needs to stay connected to its insurance carriers at all times.

With three branch offices and numerous employees servicing local customers, Myron Steves depends heavily on its broadband connectivity. With an entirely virtual network environment by which all information is routed through a single internet provider, the company was vulnerable to disruptions. When connectivity between offices was interrupted, Myron Steves lost the ability to access its network, its customers, and insurance carriers. Outages resulted in lost business and put it at risk to provide timely service to its customers.

Myron Steves needed a solution that would enable it to diversify its network and reduce the risk of outages. In addition, the solution needed to be easily installed for quick connectivity in new branch locations as the business continued to grow.

Solution Selection and Implementation: Meriplex and VMware SD-WAN™

Myron Steves sought a managed solutions partner who would understand the network connectivity issues its was experiencing and remedy the problem with a long-term solution that also provided Myron Steves with plenty of growth potential.

Myron Steves chose the Meriplex Managed SD-WAN Solution as it provided a cost-effective, turnkey solution that enabled Myron Steves to centrally access, monitor, and control its entire network.

Meriplex Managed SD-WAN Solution with VMware SD-WAN architecture transformed the network from one of sporadic and business damaging outages to one with redundancy and diversity, providing always-on network uptime.

Meriplex installed multiple broadband connections into each office and dual connections to remote locations. With this structure, network downtime was reduced to zero.

Fast and Seamless Deployment

Meriplex installed VMware SD-WAN Edges in each office, which were then connected via VMware SD-WAN technology and leveraged through Meriplex cloud gateways. The installation of the new SD-WAN infrastructure was seamless and quick, with installation time affected only by the need to bring in additional redundant broadband carrier lines at office locations.

Routing without Routers

VMware SD-WAN delivers robust routing capabilities without the need for an additional router device. With its cloud-delivered architecture, VMware SD-WAN is built from the ground up tomanage all cloud-required routing without the technology and hardware limitations of traditional routers. As Meriplex deployed its Managed SD-WAN Solution, it was able to replace all existing routers with VMware SD-WAN Edge Devices that provided the network routing capabilities Myron Steves required as well as introducing a level of flexibility and network-wide configuration changes that was not available before.

Fully Managed SD-WAN Solution

The Meriplex Managed SD-WAN Solution provides customers with all the benefits and competitive advantages that SD-WAN affords, while eliminating the IT demands of day-to-day management. With VMware SD-WAN, Myron Steves enjoys full dashboard access and can actively monitor its own network. Meriplex fully manages all change implementations and required network maintenance, allowing Myron Steves to focus on its core business strengths.

Significant Cost Savings

Costs associated with corporate-wide network management is extremely high. With today’s network demands including virtual and cloud applications, a new architecture is needed to support the shift; however, the investment to make the change can be tremendous.

Myron Steves found that by partnering with Meriplex for its fully managed SD-WAN solution which includes design and implementation of changes, its savings were profound. Eliminating the need for internal management of the platform, introducing increased network efficiency and the elimination of network outages saved Myron Steves approximately 30% of costs in that first year.