Hiab

Hiab renewed its global backbone network in four months: costs fell to a fraction and manageability improved

Over the years, Hiab’s global network infrastructure had grown into a complex environment that was expensive, slow and difficult to manage. With the contract for its existing backbone network solution coming to an end, the company needed a new solution quickly – one that would support its cloud-based operating environment and global business processes.

Gofore carried out a global network transformation for Hiab using AWS Cloud WAN technology. The result was a unified, cloud-managed network architecture that connects cloud environments, factories and offices around the world cost-effectively and reliably.

OBJECTIVE

Moving away from an expensive and difficult-to-manage network solution

Hiab operates globally across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Over the years, the company’s network architecture had been built around multiple suppliers and different technology solutions.

The existing backbone network was expensive to maintain, offered limited visibility into its operation, and changes could take weeks to implement. At the same time, the network solution had become a business-critical dependency.

With the contract for the existing backbone network solution coming to an end, Hiab’s objectives were to:

replace the existing global backbone network with a new solution
reduce the costs of the network environment
improve network manageability and transparency
enable faster changes and better scalability
ensure business continuity within a tight timeframe.

“We needed a Site Reliability Engineering partner to develop our environments and ensure their operational reliability. One of the most urgent projects was the network transformation, for which we had only a few months,” says Ilkka Aaltonen, Director, IM Infrastructure at Hiab.

“The target was ambitious, but our confidence in Gofore’s expertise never wavered."

Ilkka Aaltonen, Director, IM Infrastructure, Hiab

SOLUTION

A cloud-based global network with AWS Cloud WAN

Gofore’s SRE team began by mapping Hiab’s existing network environment and defining the target state and a plan to guide the transformation.

The starting point was challenging. Documentation was incomplete, there was limited information about the overall structure of the network solution, and the impact of changes was difficult to predict.

“The old network was effectively a black box. Visibility into its operation was very limited, and investigating any issues was slow and difficult,” says Antti Vitikainen, Cloud Architect at Gofore.

Gofore designed and implemented a new global network architecture using AWS Cloud WAN. The work included:

building a new cloud-based backbone network
standardising network solutions across different AWS Regions
automating network management using infrastructure as code
consolidating network and routing models across seven AWS Regions into a single environment
enabling connectivity to Hiab’s offices and factories worldwide.

“The implementation was completed within an exceptionally tight timeframe. The entire network was built and deployed in around four months. The work included gradually migrating the network architectures of seven Regions to the new solution,” Vitikainen continues.

The success of the project was based on close collaboration with Hiab’s own IT team and several IT service providers, enabling the critical schedule to be maintained.

AWS Cloud WAN

AWS Cloud WAN is an Amazon Web Services service that enables organisations to connect offices, data centres and cloud environments into a single, centrally managed network. From a business perspective, Cloud WAN makes it easier to deploy new offices and cloud services, simplifies network management, and improves visibility and control. AWS manages the global backbone network, allowing organisations to focus on business needs rather than network infrastructure.

OUTCOME

Hundreds of thousands in savings and an entirely new capability to manage the network

As a result of the network transformation, Hiab now has a unified global network solution that can be managed centrally from the cloud.

The new solution provides:

better visibility into network operations
faster response to issues
significantly more agile change management
better scalability for future needs
significantly lower maintenance costs.

“The network can now be managed through code in the same way as the rest of the cloud infrastructure. New environments can effectively be deployed by adding just a few lines of code, and potential issues can be addressed much faster than before,” Vitikainen summarises.

“Collaboration between our own IT team and Gofore was seamless and agile. The target was ambitious, but our confidence in Gofore’s expertise never wavered,” says Ilkka Aaltonen.

Key figures

4 months Time taken to complete the network transformation
7 Regional network architectures consolidated into a single manageable environment
Hundreds of thousands in savings The monthly operating costs of the network solution were significantly reduced

Project highlights

Object

Hiab wanted to replace its expensive and difficult-to-manage global backbone network with a solution that supports a cloud-based operating model, enables faster changes and reduces costs.

Solution

Gofore designed and implemented a global network architecture based on AWS Cloud WAN technology. At the same time, network environments around the world were standardised and their management automated.

Outcome

Hiab gained a cost-effective, transparent and easy-to-manage global network solution that enables faster development and improved operational reliability worldwide.

EXPERTISE