Challenge
UFCW Local One is a well-respected union, representing employees across nearly every industry throughout Upstate NY and Northern PA. The challenge facing UFCW Local One is an outdated, diverse computer network that has grown on an as-needed-basis over the last several decades under a single systems administrator.
The current network design was affecting performance and exposing UFCW Local One to a high-risk of down time and security breaches. Investigating the most economical way to fulfill their vacant Systems Administrator role led to a full assessment of their current environment.
After assessing the current network and systems design, it was determined that there were many deviations from best practices. These deviations lead to latency issues, difficulty managing and troubleshooting issues on the network, multi-vendor charges, and an unreliable environment that is critical to their clients.
Solution
M.A. Polce Consulting created a services team from various internal support structures, to work with the client and learn the functioning of their critical applications in order to put together a brand-new network design and phased implementation plan and cutover. M.A. Polce’s network and security consultants put forth a detailed proposal to utilize Cisco Next Generation Firewalls and switching to consolidate into a Tier-One Managed Solution.
By recommending an industry standard firewall that has the capabilities to support more advanced features such as IPS, URL filtering and AMP protection configured in a stateful active standby pair, would deliver the most cost effective, secure solution. Consolidating their firewalling solution to handle VPN’s and internet links has resulted in a more reliable and efficient environment.
M.A. Polce Consulting also worked with UFCW as a trusted advisor to recommend more reliable, powerful and less expensive methods for connectivity to their remote sites.
Business Outcome
The partnership with M.A. Polce Consulting transformed UFCW Local One’s technical landscape from a variety of outdated platforms into a consolidated, secure, reliable, and well-documented robust network. The hardware was selected and installed according to industry standards and best practices. Additionally, the guidance M.A. Polce provided on selecting data circuits has generated thousands of dollars in savings per month, allowing UFCW Local One to invest in proactive services.
