Caritas Association for the City of Bonn e.V.

Key stats

• 15 active networks
• 201 devices in use in the dashboard
• 36 switches and 163 access points—all making care possible

Overview

With over 1,000 employees in 60 facilities, Caritas Association for the City of Bonn e.V. provides support through a range of services and social offerings for people who are facing difficult situations and marginalization.

For over a century, the association has worked closely with the community, providing support for individuals with specific aid and offerings. As the charity welfare association of the Catholic Church, it defines its tasks based on the fundamental tenets of Christian belief.

With Meraki, we now have a centrally controlled solution. I have more visibility into the network through the dashboard—it’s been a huge benefit.

Christian Feddern

IT Director, Caritas Association for the City of Bonn e.V.

Challenge

Digital services play an essential role in the charitable and nonprofit work of Caritas Association for the City of Bonn e.V.—especially as more and more people need access from their homes and cannot participate in person. An expanded digital infrastructure also facilitates work processes and helps streamline operations, allowing for employees to spend more time with the people they are serving.

Over the past few years, the association has continued to increase its focus on digitalization and set plans for expanding to a standardized and centralized network infrastructure that would be both reliable and secure.

The existing solutions were working in silos and needed to be replaced by a centrally controlled enterprise solution. Christian Feddern, IT Director for Caritas Bonn, along with six employees, was tasked with working on the digital future for the association—and they looked no further than Cisco Meraki to help them establish a centralized, intuitive solution.

Solution

Meraki was already a partner within the IT corporation among the Caritas Associations of Cologne, Rhein-Erft, Düsseldorf, and Rheinkreis Neuss, which also includes Caritas Bonn. Mr. Feddern became aware of the Meraki centrally controlled solution via close collaboration with colleagues.

Since Meraki had already been a reliable partner that Mr. Feddern had experience with, he had confidence behind the brand. He decided to trial the Meraki solution in his own office with an eight-port switch and one access point. Mr. Feddern was impressed by the ease of deployment and was quickly convinced that the Meraki solution would be a beneficial partner for Caritas Bonn.

Mr. Feddern initially deployed 150 Meraki MR access points and 33 MS switches in a total of 15 locations. The setup, configuration, and activation of the solution worked immediately. Mr. Feddern was instantly impressed by the increased visibility into the network that the single dashboard provided.

Impressive user-friendly interface

The feedback and monitoring possibilities are particular aids to Mr. Feddern and his team in their work. The dashboard makes it possible to remotely and systemically process requests with little effort through the aid of diagnostic tools. Beyond this, the team can manage the existing Meraki network and amend the configuration as needed.

Mr. Feddern especially values the fact that Cisco quality is combined with the comprehensibility of an intuitive interface. He had been working with graphical user interfaces for over 35 years and was incredibly impressed by the user-friendly nature of the Meraki interface.

Results

The first big project was carried out in one of three nursing homes when implementing the new digital care documentation. Since then, the deployment of switches and access points has made it possible for the nursing staff to securely document care information in the software on a mobile device. This allows the staff more time for people and ensures reliable quality of care. Beyond this, the residents have stable and secure Wi-Fi available in their rooms and can now communicate with family and friends via video chat.

With Meraki, Mr. Feddern is able to meet the requirements of the facility management via separate SSID networks for care documentation for residents and their relatives, staff, and visitors within one infrastructure. He can make up to 12 more SSID networks available while configuring and controlling each individual network separately, and new updates are automatically installed at night at a time set by him, which saves his team time traveling between locations.

Guests also now get Wi-Fi access by voucher, which can be done by a guest administrator thanks to the intuitive operation of the dashboard. This also makes it possible for Mr. Feddern and his team to adjust the bandwidth depending on the user group. Additionally, they have more visibility into connected devices and can manage their network access.

The access points can also be activated easily on-site, which saves the IT team valuable time. The team can also implement complex configurations if needed, and as Feddern explains, this provides the perfect combination of “complexity” and “simplicity” that is an important aspect of a solution for Caritas Bonn’s needs.

Another advantage for Feddern is that the Meraki solution is legal under the Church Data Protection Act (KDG). He considers this a milestone, since it makes the use of the solution far easier.

Looking to the future, Mr. Feddern and his team have big plans to expand their partnership with Meraki through IoT devices such as sensors for monitoring humidity and temperatures.

We had Cisco quality combined with the comprehensibility of Meraki’s great, intuitive user interface.

Christian Feddern

IT Director, Caritas Association for the City of Bonn e.V.