Audibene GmbH

Overview

The hearing experts at Audibene GmbH are committed to sourcing and fitting their customers with the leading hearing aid brands, while also providing exceptional customer service. Not only does Audibene provide online sales of hearing aids, but they also connect their clients with local specialists in their communities for ongoing care. With locations in Europe, North America, and Asia, the Leader of Global IT Operations at Audibene, Rainer Schmitt, chose Cisco Meraki for a reliable, unified network that could be deployed with minimal resources and managed centrally.

 

Original Networking Challenges

• Needed a solution to link all of the offices together to securely share customer information and internal resources
• Previous network deployment only provided local, independent infrastructure with no unified or centralized management

Each global office has a separate ISP. I just send the devices to the country office and someone connects them to the WAN. Once they are online, I can check the configuration and which services are needed at those premises.

Rainer Schmitt

Leader of Global IT Ops
 

Why Cisco Meraki

• The intuitive dashboard allows Rainer Schmitt to monitor the network and make updates as the needs of each location change
• Unified Threat Management security appliances are configured for granular Layer 7 traffic shaping, client VPN, firewall rules, and network optimization
• Global limitations ensure that no location or client is consuming too much bandwidth or accessing unwanted applications
• Live tools provide remote troubleshooting capabilities and visibility into potential issues without having to go on-site, saving time and money

 

The Deployment

• Depending on the needs of each of the 13 locations, UTM devices (MX80, MX100, or MX64W), 48-port Layer 3 switches, and MR32 802.11ac APs were installed
• The devices were sent to each location around the world where an on-site employee connected them to the WAN and Rainer Schmitt could make any needed configuration updates remotely from HQ
• Each of the offices was connected via the Meraki automatic, fully meshed, and self-healing site-to-site VPN

 

Results

• With multiple SSIDs available on each network, Audibene isolated guest traffic from corporate traffic in just a mouse click, while also requiring secure authentication to each SSID
• The IT team is benefiting from the integration of a dynamic VPN connection to the MS Azure Cloud Services providing further interoperability between existing services
• Cloud based management provides Audibene with the ability to manage each distributed location remotely, eliminating the need for on-site IT staff
• Corporate-owned devices, including laptops, smartphones, BYOD, and guest devices, are now able to seamlessly connect to the network and share resources as needed
• Centralized dashboard with unified visibility and control has allowed the single network admin to reduce management overhead
• Automatic firmware updates and new feature releases that are included in the license provide a future proof network and provide significant cost savings