Engineering and construction leader, CIC Group, improves job site efficiency with secure, high-performance Aruba SD-Branch solution

CIC Group companies are among the world's leading engineering and construction experts, providing solutions for broad markets, including aerospace, military, energy, industrial manufacturing, and healthcare. Dozens of CIC Group construction sites across the U.S. rely on remote access to engineering plans and other business critical applications. However, slow Wi-Fi and an unreliable wide area network threatened productivity.

Availability and quality of internet services vary widely at job sites, and the company's previous branch networking solution was simply not flexible or stable enough to handle growing demands. Justin Kuzara, network engineer with CIC Group, explains, "We needed a more efficient and reliable way to ensure remote access to critical file servers and applications."

Modernizing Branch Connectivity

Ultra-rugged submarine hulls, massive wind tunnels to test aerodynamics, nuclear power plants—all are prime examples of CIC Group capabilities, provided through its principal operating companies, Nooter, Nooter/Eriksen, Wyatt Field Service, and Delta Bundle Extraction.

For CIC Group, every job site requires connectivity on-site, in its seven main offices and central data centers, and to the internet. Local Wi-Fi was due for an upgrade, and a legacy Cisco DM-VPN was backhauling all internet traffic to the data centers, which created a bottleneck to critical applications.

After evaluating options for modernizing its branch connectivity, CIC Group selected Aruba SD-Branch and upgraded its wireless infrastructure at the job sites to Aruba Wi-Fi 6 access points, with everything managed from the cloud with Aruba Central. Kuzara notes, "The main reason we went with Aruba was the ability to give everyone the additional security, performance, and reliability they need in a unified end-to-end solution."

Higher Performance End to End

CIC Group now has a complete LAN-to-WAN-to-LAN network solution—from job sites to data centers and offices (which already had Aruba Wi-Fi 6 access points and Aruba wired switches)—which includes unified WAN acceleration.

"Everybody appreciates the increased Wi-Fi range and higher network speeds," Kuzara says. "Downloading files, utilizing business critical applications, accessing email—it's all 50 to 60 percent faster for them, which helps eveaccessryone be more productive."

One reason for the performance improvement is WAN acceleration. Another is that SD-Branch (software-defined branch) enables each job site to break out locally to the internet rather than backhauling through one of the company's data centers. This frees up valuable network bandwidth for critical applications.

Optimizes network for critical applications

Kuzara explains that critical systems were previously slowed because the network was saturated with internet traffic. Allowing Internet traffic to break out locally gives those critical applications an immediate network performance boost. "By freeing up our network from that Internet traffic, all our other business applications benefit."

Because securing internet-destined traffic is essential, Kuzara and his team also deployed Zscaler Client Connector on all their endpoint clients, taking advantage of Aruba SD-Branch integration with Zscaler through the Cloud Connect service. This approach automatically establishes a secure connection from Aruba SD-Branch to cloud-based Zscaler Internet Access sites for traffic inspection.

Versatility to handle multiple circuit types and devices

CIC Group also gained network versatility to securely handle different connectivity methods and devices.

For example, at job sites broadband options vary widely, and some sites can only connect through LTE. Kuzara notes, "Being able to load balance across different bandwidths and types of circuits was another important advantage of choosing Aruba SD-Branch."

In offices and warehouses, Kuzara can support everything from standard PCs to advanced engineering printers and wireless scanners on the Aruba Wi-Fi 6 network. He says, "Bringing our warehouse scanners onto the Aruba wireless network has improved the speed and efficiency of getting items scanned, categorized, and stored."

Simplified Network Management with Aruba Central Cloud

Cloud-based Aruba Central provides Kuzara and his team with a single, centralized console for managing the wired, wireless, and branch networks. He points out, "With Aruba Central cloud, it is much faster to make small configuration changes and replicate changes down to all the sites."

Kuzara adds, "In the old way, I always assumed if I had to change something, it would take a whole day of logging into things. Now, I just log in once to Aruba Central cloud, change a couple quick things, and I'm done in less than 20 minutes."

Deploying devices is just as easy. "The configuration for a new wireless device is almost a zero-touch process," Kuzara says. "All I need to do is update a few details and it downloads the configuration automatically from Aruba Central cloud."

Better-performing network means happier people

To strengthen security, Kuzara also gained the ability to create network segments and centrally manage access. "Using Aruba Central cloud, it was easy to segment multiple VLANs and apply the same security policies across all of our branch locations."

He also points out that the AIOps capabilities built into Aruba Central cloud help the network team stay ahead of issues. "The insights we get have been useful for proactively identifying problems with things like DNS resolutions on the network, so we can take action before they impact our staff and crews."

Kuzara says that the breadth of capabilities Aruba has brought to CIC Group's LAN and WAN networks are key to keeping job sites and offices operating productively. "Performance, high availability, and security are all critical in this business," he emphasizes. "Aruba helps us meet the high expectations of our people and deliver a quality of experience whether they are at a remote job site or sitting in a main office. I can say with confidence that everybody is much happier now."