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In a strategic partnership, global Tier 1 service provider CMC Networks is teaming up with SafetySA, a prominent provider of Testing, Inspection, Certification (TIC) and Training solutions. The focus of this collaboration is a network upgrade, shifting from legacy MPLS to the agile world of Software-Defined Wide-Area Network (SD-WAN). This transition promises to unlock faster, more secure, and highly efficient connectivity among various sites, ultimately enhancing the delivery of safety services to South African enterprises.
SafetySA specializes in a wide spectrum of industries, including mining, oil and gas, transport and logistics, agriculture, financial services, government, pharmaceuticals, hospitality, construction, and retail. Its core focus revolves around food safety and workplace safety. Brands like SafetyCloud, AssureCloud, NOSA, NQA, and SAMTRAC play a pivotal role in ensuring safety across diverse sectors.
By integrating an SD-WAN approach interconnected with the existing MPLS, CMC Networks has paved the way for a seamless migration from MPLS to SD-WAN. This staged transition comes with zero network disruption risks.
In the words of Marisa Trisolino, CEO at CMC Networks, "For enterprises across Africa and beyond, network performance and efficiency are crucial for success. Businesses simply can't afford to have rigid, legacy network infrastructure hindering their growth. By working with SafetySA, we're helping to enable fast, secure, and seamless safety service delivery to enterprises across a wide spectrum of industries in South Africa. We took our local market knowledge, experience, and solutions, and packaged it all up into a comprehensive solution to meet SafetySA's network requirements both now and into the future."
CMC Networks' implementation involves a fully meshed Juniper Session Smart Router (SSR) SD-WAN with high availability nodes strategically positioned in multiple SafetySA and NOSA training centers throughout South Africa. This network evolution leverages CMC's dual IP Premier Direct Internet Access (DIA) service, underpinned by the highest level of Service Level Agreements (SLA). This advanced setup empowers CMC Networks to oversee SafetySA's underlay network connectivity through IP packet forwarding, ensuring seamless service provisioning across SafetySA's expansive network.
In Johannesburg, a high-availability node was deployed in one of CMC's data centers, facilitating smooth interconnectivity with SafetySA's existing MPLS network. This cross-connect approach ensures a seamless transition as the network evolves. CMC Networks goes the extra mile by providing a fully managed service, accompanied by a comprehensive suite of features that includes a dedicated service manager, SLA reporting, trend analysis, and extensive consulting.
Pieter Erasmus, CEO at SafetySA, emphasizes the importance of delivering top-tier safety solutions. He stated, "Workplace safety and food safety are incredibly important to our customers located across South Africa and beyond. To best support our customers in this regard, it is critical we have the tools, processes, and expertise to deliver our solutions seamlessly. Our existing network was unable to provide the flexibility or scalability we needed. CMC Networks has delivered a solution that can move with the speed of our business, with a team of network experts there to support us every step of the way."
As part of the transformation, an additional virtual appliance was deployed in Microsoft Azure to facilitate the connection of the network to SafetySA's workloads hosted in Azure South Africa North. This integration is fortified with Zero-Trust and Layer 3-4 security capabilities, ensuring that only secure, legitimate traffic traverses SafetySA's network. This strategic routing also optimizes security and application performance for SafetySA and its enterprise customers across various industries.
