5 Digital Transformation Success Stories from CDW and Cisco

CDW partners with Cisco on a wide portfolio of solutions serving the security, data centre, intuitive networking, small business operations and collaboration needs of Canadian organizations. Here are five cases where we helped make amazing happen with Cisco.

In the highly competitive financial industry, offering smooth and consistent digital experience is key for customer success. Realizing this, our customer wanted to optimize the performance and availability of their customer-facing applications.

They wanted to ensure that their customers don’t have to wait due to slow loading speeds or face downtime as they shopped for financial services or managed their accounts. To make this happen, a robust application monitoring system was needed that could help track and remediate faults before they turned into customer issues.       

How Cisco AppDynamics streamlined application performance

CDW helped the customer solve this challenge with Cisco AppDynamics. The solution allowed the customer to visualize performance metrics across several interconnected applications on a unified platform. This armed the customer with the ability to closely observe application health and quickly respond to incidents that may have otherwise resulted in downtime.

From cloud servers to networking, it became easier to manage a complex IT infrastructure that could continually deliver a satisfying user experience to thousands of customers simultaneously. With improved visibility, it was now possible to launch new application updates faster and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

CDW’s implementation expertise

CDW helped the customer implement AppDynamics across applications hosted on a variety of different platforms and environments. Our solution expertise made it simpler to navigate the unique requirements of each platform and tie the metric data together in a single view.

CDW drove value by overcoming implementation bottlenecks, maximizing the benefits of Cisco technology and meeting the scale at which the customer operated.

As the live entertainment industry evolves, providing audiences with a seamless integrated experience has never been more important. To meet these demands, a Canadian live entertainment venue sought to modernize its outdated technology infrastructure.

As a spectator, satisfaction is key to building loyalty. It was essential to eliminate any frustrations that could lead to a decline in attendance and customer retention. The venue sought an IT partner that could help digitize the customer experience, automate manual processes and reduce the IT management burden.

Overcoming deployment bottlenecks with Cisco Meraki for SD-WAN

By consolidating multiple legacy systems into a unified Cisco collaboration platform, the venue reduced complexity and maintenance costs. Cisco Meraki ensured the deployment had the flexibility to scale, and to suit either an intimate gathering or a large-scale event. This adaptability was crucial in ensuring the venue could consistently deliver an exceptional experience, regardless of the event type.

Additionally, the integration of interactive tools enabled spectators to engage more during events, improving the overall experience.

The CDW team also prioritized the venue’s security. Cisco’s networking solution provided security measures, including encryption, authentication and access controls. These robust measures protected against cyberthreats, ensuring spectator interactions and data remained secure to preserve the venue’s reputation.

How CDW reimagined the venue’s networking

CDW worked closely with the venue to seamlessly integrate Cisco’s solutions into their production environment. This integration included deploying Cisco’s collaboration tools, which enhanced spectator engagement through interactive activities such as live polls and real-time communication.

By partnering with CDW, the live entertainment venue successfully transformed its technology infrastructure, overcame significant operational challenges and elevated the overall spectator experience.

A financial services customer wanted to configure its data centre hardware as part of an ongoing refresh cycle and needed a trusted partner to manage the logistics. With sensitive regulations, large scale workloads and custom technology requirements, reliability was important to the customer.

The project included the installation and testing of new servers as per specific hardware configurations to ensure the customer could meet its data centre refresh goals.  

How CDW delivered Cisco UCS configuration at scale

CDW, a preferred vendor for Cisco technology, was entrusted with the warehousing and logistics of the project. CDW helped the customer complete the refresh by installing and configuring Cisco UCS servers that power virtual workloads in a data centre.

From the Cisco warehouse to the customer’s physical data centre, CDW orchestrated the entire operation, ensuring that the hardware was tailored to customer requirements. Our infrastructure services team managed the server configuration, initial server testing and brought newly installed servers to an operational state.

This hardware refresh demanded deep partner expertise and superior data centre talent. CDW delivered on both aspects comprehensively, making it a smooth upgrade for the customer.

In a manufacturing facility, networking presents challenges due to the presence of heavy machinery, metal objects and cabling constraints. Our customer wanted to modernize its onsite networking and needed a solution that could manage its complex IoT systems.

The customer needed a network that could handle data being transmitted from a large number of IoT sensors for facility upkeep. They also wanted to simplify how the network and security is managed. The networking had to be designed around the manufacturing plant’s architecture with a very limited scope for floor changes.

How Cisco Catalyst and Cisco DNA simplified complex networking

CDW’s networking team leveraged a Cisco Catalyst solution that features enterprise-grade network switches. For the customer’s complex use case, this solution allowed various internal networking outlets to be seamlessly connected into a facility-wide network. A modular chassis design makes it possible to customize the switch layout as per the manufacturer's requirements.

Cisco DNA, a network management software solution, was used to converge IoT and security on a single platform. The customer had greater visibility and ease of access by using Cisco DNA and Catalyst switches.

CDW’s enterprise networking prowess

Deploying the network with physical, security and logical complexities made this project challenging, but CDW experts were able to resolve them comprehensively. Our expertise was evident – CDW is a partner who adapts to unique customer challenges and makes innovative use of Cisco technology.

CDW deployed the network with minimum operational downtime at the facility, future-proofed the IoT network and made network management easier for the customer.

A Canadian healthcare organization wanted to upgrade its networking infrastructure to meet the growing demands of modern patient care. The customer had significant legacy hardware installations that needed to be refreshed while rearchitecting on-premises data centres.

Older technology became a challenge as it was a roadblock for the organization to serve more patients and run digital initiatives for research activities. It also presented security challenges with highly sensitive data protection regulations.

Secure, modern networking with Cisco SD-Access and Cisco ACI

In this project, Cisco and CDW collaboratively built the network design for the customer. This involved revamping the legacy installations with new network implementations and making network management intuitive. This included introducing zero-trust security to the network using Cisco SD-Access for controlling secure access across varying user levels.

Cisco ACI was implemented to simplify network deployment across the care centres of the organization. It made network modernization easier and helped the customer manage its own network with greater visibility.

With a renewed networking infrastructure, the organization is now able to advance patient care without disruptions and enable seamless digitization for its healthcare initiatives.

CDW’s core networking expertise

This project is a shining example of CDW-Cisco collaboration that drove transformative outcomes for the customer. CDW’s expertise shone through in developing a strong customer relationship, which was crucial for a large-scale network upgrade.

CDW’s networking team helped design the solution and deploy Cisco products in a seamless way for the customer. CDW was able to address planning, training and design disparities, to facilitate a complex project with commendable results.

Our deep Cisco expertise and years of partnership allow us to truly transform how your organization manages its network, security and collaboration.

From tailoring Cisco solutions to the needs of your organization to enabling smart purchase options, we can help your Cisco investment achieve maximum returns. Our Cisco experts have been instrumental in powering Canada’s leading organizations with transformative outcomes.

Whether enabling secure remote work, designing a new data centre or revamping your network infrastructure, CDW and Cisco can help you solve your most pressing IT challenges.