How Firms Achieve Powerful Results with DNA Center

Forward-thinking firms are embracing new technological tools to accelerate growth. One critical tool to leverage enterprise digital transformation into growth is centralized network management.

Enterprises that implement centralized network management through Cisco DNA Center are seeing growth to their bottom line through lower costs and increased productivity. These enterprises faced challenges that may sound familiar: aging infrastructure, unreliable networks, downtime due to error, time-consuming troubleshooting and provisioning, and more. Cisco DNA Center was able to help them meet their business goals.

Convincing stakeholders to embrace digital transformation can be a challenge. The investment may seem daunting. Implementing a new system may seem like a distraction from achieving other business-critical goals. These enterprises tell a different story, though. Cisco DNA Center provides powerful results by supporting them as they achieve their goals for growth. Here are their stories.

Keeping Up with the Endpoint Explosion: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is ranked as the best pediatric hospital in California. It serves thousands of patients and families each year. Running a reliable network is crucial to the life-saving work they do.

Like many enterprises, CHLA was dealing with an expanding number of endpoints. In ten years, they went from 6,100 connected devices to more than 30,000 and with the expanding use of IoT technology, that number will only increase. As new devices were being added to the network, they faced challenges regarding device configuration and security.

To simplify device configuration while ensuring security, CHLA turned to Cisco DNA Center, which wraps around SD-Access. SD-Access provides an interconnected fabric that simplifies deployment for their IT staff. Cisco DNA Center intelligently identifies new devices and applies security profiles that are pre-configured by CHLA. DNA Center cut out the manual effort involved in device configuration, reducing the potential for security breaches due to human error and freeing up their staff to pursue larger goals.

“Children’s Hospital really wants to ensure that we move the needle on technology,” says Troy Veilleux, CHLA’s CTO. “This isn’t early adoption…we finally have solutions that will meet our needs.”

Decreasing Costs and Improving Network Reliability: IBM

IBM MultiNetwork WAN Services (MNWS) provides global network solutions to enterprises around the world. Their clients include airlines, who need to implement complex changes to their network at a moment’s notice to retain a competitive edge. Significant infrastructure changes used to take months, but with the automation provided by Cisco DNA, these changes can be deployed in a few days.

With Cisco DNA Center, IBM MNWS can provision their client sites remotely before provisioning onsite. IT team members can use a setup they’ve predefined for the client, which simplifies the process deployment process. Provisioning that used to take hours can now be completed in minutes.

IBM MNWS also uses DNA Center Assurance to ensure their clients stay online. If an airline’s network goes down, even briefly, it has a ripple effect, delaying flights and leading to long lines and angry customers. IBM MNWS uses DNA Center Assurance’s predictive analytics to ensure airline networks stay up and keep up with business needs.

“With analytics and automation, we continue to provide the best network experience to our clients,” says Markus Vögele, IBM MNWS Senior Architect. With DNA Center and Assurance, IBM MNWS increased their client’s bandwidth by 30 percent, reducing their downtime, and decreased their costs by 25 percent.

Improving the Wired and Wireless Experience: University of Wollongong

The University of Wollongong is located an hour south of Sydney, Australia. They serve 33,000 students and 2,500 staff on nine campuses, including campuses in Dubai and Hong Kong. Their students and staff rely on their network to complete coursework and do research, so maintaining a reliable wired and wireless network is critical.

Like many enterprises, IT staff members were using several tools and spending hours digging into logs to troubleshoot issues. By implementing DNA Assurance and Analytics, their troubleshooting time went from hours to minutes. They can view network issues in a timeline and see exactly what the conditions were when the problem occurred. DNA Assurance’s guided remediation helps to expedite troubleshooting even more. The university also uses DNA Assurance’s predictive analytics to identify potential issues before there’s a complaint.

“With the help of DNA Assurance, we are able to reduce the time to troubleshoot,” says Robin Mok, Senior Communications Engineer at the University of Wollongong. “We now have a lot of data which we can reuse and model to improve the student quality while they are on site utilizing our infrastructure.”

See Powerful Results with DNA Center

Enterprise digital transformation is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Centralized network management with DNA Center has provided powerful results to enterprises, including:

• Improved efficiency. Device deployment and discovery are automated, saving valuable time.
• Increased network reliability. DNA Center provides context-guided analytics to optimize network performance.
• Enhanced security. User and device profiles are easy to create and provision, and SD-Access simplifies microsegmentation, which is critical to network security. DNA Center also includes Stealthwatch, which uses machine learning to detect and isolate cybersecurity threats.

At Acadia Technology group, we know that digital transformation is critical to the growth of your enterprise. We’re ready to be your partner along the way, providing real-world solutions tailored to the needs of your organization. Contact us today to find out how you can use digital transformation to bring powerful results to your firm.