Building supply firm improves business efficiency and end-user quality of experience with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform

Across the U.S., construction professionals know where to go for high-quality building products— Builders FirstSource, a leading national supplier and manufacturer of structural building materials for commercial and residential construction projects. But the company’s WAN, built using traditional routers, was difficult to manage and could no longer keep up with business growth.

老龄化的交换机和路由器是被迫的remote sites to backhaul all traffic to one of two central data centers. For Senior Network Manager Greg Taylor, this complex network approach required a fresh look to not only simplify the WAN, but also improve efficiency and performance in the process. “To me, SD-WAN was the answer to our network issues,” Taylor says.

An SD-WAN That Just Works

泰勒（Taylor）进行尽职调查，评估了几家SD-WAN供应商，包括Aruba（以前是银峰），Cisco Viptela，Cisco Meraki，Riverbed，Riverbed，Citrix和Cloudgenix。由于多种原因，大多数产品都出现了，这是多种原因（Too Grouned，缺乏企业功能，仅使用一种类型的界面或一个分离的平台）。

In contrast, theAruba EdgeConnectEnterprise platform, a self-driving SD-WAN by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, stood out for its breadth of capabilities and ease-of-use. In fact, theAruba Orchestratormanagement console was a key factor in choosing Aruba.

Taylor explains, “We need an SD-WAN solution that delivers the highest levels of network and application performance, and also simplifies operations with centralized orchestration and management. We really liked Orchestrator because it’s a lot easier to push out standardized configurations centrally, using a common set of templates, and know it’s going to work.”

高级网络功能的快速推出

Taylor and his team are rolling out the EdgeConnect platform to all Builders FirstSource sites, having completed approximately 250 deployments to date, and adding a dozen or more sites to the SD-WAN each week.

At most sites, EdgeConnect connects to an existing MPLS circuit and a 100 Mbps broadband link. Where multiple internet service providers are available, Taylor is eliminating MPLS in favor of dual-broadband. Many sites also have a 4G LTE modem as backup.

By bonding two links at each site, enabling both links to be actively used simultaneously, and taking advantage ofadvanced capabilitiessuch as path conditioning, quality of service (QoS), and dynamic path control on the platform, network uptime has improved dramatically. “We’ve had some sites lose their MPLS connection but not experience any WAN downtime,” Taylor says.

提供最高质量的经验

泰勒说：“我们使用SD-WAN的目标之一是增加偏远站点的可用带宽。”“我们有一些位置从1.5 Mbps T1线到宽带链接，并向下250 Mbps和100 Mbps上升。荒谬的速度。然后应用QoS和交通塑造，我们使我们的人们感到非常高兴。”

The impact on quality of experience for end users is striking. For example, at one location downloading email previously took so long, people would walk away to get a cup of coffee.

After deploying EdgeConnect, Taylor says he was on the phone with someone at that location and asked him to check email while on the phone. “He said, ‘wow, it just opened. That’s never happened before.’ So we know the SD-WAN is making a real difference in productivity.”

WAN optimization speeds remote application access

Taylor and his team also added the optionalAruba BoostWAN optimization performance pack to the unified EdgeConnect platform to address latency issues at one of the company’s remote locations in Alaska.

Connecting to the ERP system in Texas to run a print job back in Alaska was taking an inordinate amount of time. Using Boost provided a 90 percent improvement in effective latency so employees can complete print runs faster and move on with other tasks.

In the near future, Taylor also sees opportunities for leveraging the unified zone-based firewall within EdgeConnect to enable local internet breakout for trusted applications, as well as simplify LAN routing, at the remote sites.

Simplified Application Traffic Control

Taylor also appreciates the increased level of visibility and control over application traffic flows the EdgeConnect platform provides. Leveraging unified routing interoperability and using Orchestrator to create business intent overlays with specific QoS policies, Taylor says, “Traffic is automatically routed in the most efficient manner.”

Taylor has since been able to retire the old Cisco routers at most remote sites, simplifying the job of network management. For example, Taylor had some sites on the MPLS network connecting through the Texas data center to access the POS application running in California, which introduced latency.

“Through Orchestrator we could easily change the routing to avoid that extra hop, mark that traffic with a QoS value, and everything just worked, Taylor notes. “That was fantastic in saving us time.”

Streamlines Bringing New Sites Online

As the current SD-WAN rollout approaches completion, Builders FirstSource is now positioned to continue growing having gained the ability to open new facilities more quickly and efficiently.

泰勒指出，一旦配备了电路，他就可以简单地插入EdgeConnect设备，并在大约20分钟内配置并完全运行。在同样的情况下，提出传统的路由器将使他的一位网络工程师一整天。

“I’ve been very happy with the EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform,” Taylor reports. “It saves so much time and minimizes the likelihood of human error. With EdgeConnect we have much more granularity in how we route traffic, which gives us the flexibility we need to enable the business to grow and adapt to new opportunities.”