The Logistics of Preventing Network Outages

Nearly every professional employee depends on continuous network availability today. It’s not just significant outages that matter; even brief glitches become major disturbances when they’re frequent, which happens far too often with legacy network technology.

Similar to trying to depend on an older car that starts letting you down. You bought it for all the right reasons. It performed well for years. Then one day it won’t start. Another day it breaks down in traffic. This continues until you accept the fact that replacing it with a newer model would make the aggravation go away. Not just because it would be newer, but because technology has advanced over the years to make cars more inherently reliable.

So, you bite the bullet, purchase a newer model, and years later, you barely remember what it was like to have that undependable car.

The same logic applies to network technology. If your legacy network is suffering frequent outages, every employee in your organization is the driver experiencing the outdated technology failing them far too many times. You can do your best to keep it up and running, but your users won’t be fully productive or satisfied until they’re on a more reliable, advanced network.

These were the circumstances for Beavex, a leading logistics and on-demand delivery provider with 83 offices and terminal locations throughout the U.S. Beavex has 500 full-time employees and 3,000 contract drivers, all of whom need dependable data networking to perform their jobs.

The Beavex experience

Over the years following initial buildout, the Beavex WAN that powered terminal facilities’ fleet management and drivers’ mobile apps was underperforming, and far too complex to manage effectively. Outages were a daily occurrence that impeded the company’s ability to meet customers’ expectations.

That all changed when Beavex hired a new VP of information technology, who set out to replace the existing network with SD-WAN. The results include:

• Outages virtually eliminated. SD‑WAN reduced Beavex outages by 95%. When an outage does occur, it affects only one location.
• Network visibility greatly improved. The SD‑WAN management portal provides intuitive access into network performance for troubleshooting and reporting to pinpoint any problems and their severity.
• Network management simplified. In addition to improving visibility, the SD‑WAN management portal makes adding and managing remote locations a snap.
• IT productivity increased. With reliable connectivity, the Beavex’s IT team now has much more time to focus on strategic initiatives.

The solution Beavex chose is Windstream Enterprise SD-WAN Concierge, and the Beavex experience is a great example of IT problem-solving and the impact of advanced technology – you can read the full story here.