ChannelVision Magazine

virtual reality The manufacturing company has more than 1,700 employees and is headquartered out of St. Clair Shores, Mich. In addition to St. Clair Shores, there are three other U.S. locations — Michigan, Indiana and Texas — and five international locations — China, India, Germany, Mexico and Poland. An instance ran in the Azure cloud. The sites in Mexico and Texas were connected via MPLS to the St. Clair Shores headquarters. All locations ex- cept for Texas had direct internet con- nections, secured with local, provider- managed firewalls. Applications includ- ed ERP from Plex Systems, Microsoft Office 365, Nasuni for file replication and voice from ShoreTel. Like many companies, Fisher & Company relied on MPLS for its global network. And like many companies, Fisher was tired of the high costs, limited bandwidth and complexities of MPLS services. The company spent $27,000 a month for a managed, se- cure MPLS service. The company’s 10 Mbits/s connection from the U.S. to Mexico alone cost $7,000 per month. And three Riverbed WAN op- timizers meant a one-time outlay of nearly $60,000 with an annual renewal of $7,000. With stacks of appliances, includ- ing firewalls, WAN optimizers and routers, comes complexity and a breeding ground for problems. Making the Case Study F irst, the background: Fisher & Company is the parent company of Fisher Dynamics, a seating-systems and mechanisms company, and Fisher Dynamics Metal Forming, a safety-critical precision metal parts company. Fisher & Company improvesWAN performance, slashes MPLS costs with SD-WAN 20 Channel Vision | January - February, 2018