National food services distributor, Bidfood needed to find an effective and efficient way of upgrading its IT environment to not only reflect the growth of its business, but also future proof the business with the latest technologies available. Turning to BUI and Redvine Networks for assistance with this challenge.
“The wide area network (WAN) was one of the key components in this regard. With branches in South Africa and Botswana, retaining the existing MPLS infrastructure was becoming cost prohibitive. Furthermore, we needed to upgrade our capacity and gain complete visibility into our WAN environment”
Johan KokIT Executive
PROJECT
Upgrading IT Environment
VeloCloud SD-WAN
CUSTOMER
YEAR
2020
WHAT WE DID
Migration to Cloud, implementing VMware SA-WAN powered by VeloCloud
Project Outcome
Future-Proofing operations by transforming Bidfoods network infrastructure for high availability, scalability and performance with the migration to a cloud environment.
Scalability
VeloCloud architecture provides direct internet links affording dedicated bandwidth to individual sites while also providing the scalability required to expand as operations grow
Zero-Touch Deployment
Implementation which took place during COVID-19 Level 5 lockdown in SA was simplified thanks to the zero-touch deployment of VeloCloud, which was provided by Redvine enabling the plug-and-play deployment across all Bidfood branches.
Capacity
Halved bandwidth costs while increasing capacity 10-fold
Efficiency
The rollout took an impressive 10 days from start to finish
“For us, the seamless failover capabilities provided by VeloCloud and the ability to mix and match connectivity options depending on our needs is enabling us to provide the continuous access critical for our operations that run around the clock. Once the links were installed at the Bidfood branches, we could easily decommission the legacy system and migrate to the SD-WAN environment”
Johan KokIT Executive
It is not just about the technology but having the right people in place to drive it
Planning was critical as this provided the blueprint to ensure a smooth implementation.
Johan Kok, IT Executive at Bidfood explained how lockdown had of course impacted their operations but they were able to use it as an opportunity to overhaul their critical infrastructure through VeloCloud. Gaining complete visibility and manageability of their networks. This allows them to proactivitely engage with their service providers if the links are not preforming adequately before having to escalate into bigger problems.
“We not only leveraged our experience on the architecture, but also remotely assisted with its deployment. Our status as a VeloCloud MSP enables us to run gateways across Africa to ensure customers like Bidfood get seamless failover across their regional footprint if there are any connectivity issues at their sites. SD-WAN is a business enabler for any organisation and Bidfood is now well positioned to capitalise on this”
Morne VermeulenSenior Core Engineer at Redvine
