Leading global data analytics company transforms infrastructure and experiences across 30 countries with Aruba SD-Branch and Central

After a brisk period of growth by acquisition, Verisk found itself with a patchwork of decentralized networking solutions that were significantly impacting business productivity and driving up costs.

"Our company operates on a federated model, which means each acquired business unit remains semi-autonomous," explains Sophie Twu, Technical Consultant for the Jersey City, New Jersey-based global analytics firm with more than 100 locations in 30+ countries. "To remain a top player in our industry, we required a unified IT ecosystem that gave each unit local control while supplying all employees with secure, streamlined connectivity."

Intelligent SD-Branch Solution Proves Compelling

Verisk evaluated various strategies for transforming its networking infrastructure, and decommissioning physical data centers, to become an all-cloud enterprise that provides consistent experiences and access to business applications ranging from legacy mainframe solutions to cloud-native options. The initiative, called One Verisk, also included supporting the waves of IoT devices entering Verisk's corporate and branch locations.

As amplifying successes is a guiding principle at Verisk, the company decided to take a closer look at solutions offered by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. "Due to our successful enterprise wireless partnership with Aruba, we wanted to expand on that win," Twu says.

This led to conducting a three-month proof of concept (POC) with Aruba's SD-Branch solution. "It met all of our One Verisk requirements," Twu says. "Plus, it offered IT streamlining options we'd yet to even think about, such as virtual gateway automation and SD-WAN orchestration."

Aruba Central Plays a Starring Role

Verisk's comprehensive SD-Branch solution includes Aruba's Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 access points (APs), physical 7010 gateways within branches, virtual gateways in the cloud and 2930F access switches, as well as cloud-native Central for unified network operations and ClearPass for policy-based network access control (NAC).

Key to selecting Aruba's SD-Branch offering was Central, with its robust features and intuitive management dashboard for wireless, wired, and WAN. "In the past, setting up SD-Branch topology could take weeks and sometimes required engaging a third party to assist us," says Twu.

With Central, the solution handles the chores around configuring, applying, and managing the appropriate settings, replacing traditional complexity with points and clicks.

Supporting an autonomous business model

Central also enables Verisk to securely extend management dashboards to the IT staff at each of its business units.

"It's imperative for our roughly two dozen business units to maintain their historical networking autonomy, without sacrificing the enterprise controls required for assuring a consistent Wi-Fi experience across our corporate footprint," Twu says.

Using Central, Verisk groups offices according to their corresponding business unit and applies role-based access to each organization's IT staff.

"Aruba's solution is unique in its ability to support our business model simply and elegantly," says Twu. "The tools are easy for everyone in IT to use, including engineers who are new to the technology."

Establishing Global Workforce Office 3.0 for Speedy Cloud Connectivity

Another big plus for Verisk is the ease of integrating public clouds with Aruba's SD-Branch, to enhance application delivery and optimize traffic speeds, as the firm works toward establishing its "Verisk Global Workforce Office 3.0."

In addition to branch connectivity, the larger IT initiative includes transitioning from a physical data center to a cloud-based platform. It leverages Amazon Web Services (AWS) Virtual Private Data Centers (VPCs) and Transit Gateway network for infrastructure and Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) for zero-trust.

"Aruba's tight integration with other tier one solutions is critical to help us reach our global infrastructure goals," Twu says, referring to how Aruba's virtual gateways connect the Verisk network to AWS Transit Gateways in each region.

With Central managing the entire life cycle of public cloud gateways, including discovering Aruba Virtual Gateways at 6 AWS regions worldwide, monitoring SD-WAN health, GRE tunnels and other operational aspects, Verisk enjoys task automation features that help reduce deployment times from days to minutes.

"The entire process is intuitive and easy," says Twu. "It's been a significant contributor to our transformation."

In a single click, tunnels are orchestrated and routes automatically propagated between cloud and branch, at scale, creating flexible and secure overlay topologies that securely connect Verisk branch locations to AWS VPCs and Zscaler.

Securing user and device access with ClearPass

On a user and device level, Aruba's ClearPass, accessed via Central's dashboard, unifies Verisk's wired and wireless NAC using advanced, customizable role-based access.

"Although we previously had another solution for wired NAC, it made sense to consolidate onto one tool for both," Twu says. "It permits profiling and securing access for all types devices, including IoT options like IP phones, conference room equipment, and digital signage."

For known equipment, such as corporate-issued laptops, ClearPass automatically ensures devices comply with application, update, and upgrade policies each time a user connects. Personal and unrecognized devices are automatically assigned to the guest network.

Customer-Focused Innovation Delivers Powerful, Holistic Platform

Today, Verisk is realizing multiple rewards from its new SD-branch solution, starting with Aruba's "Customer First, Customer Last" philosophy.

"From the start, Aruba demonstrated it values our mid-sized enterprise equally with larger companies by supplying us with opportunities to meet with various Aruba executives and technologists," says Twu. "This made us feel confident that Aruba will evolve the platform for businesses of all sizes, including ours."

Throughout the relationship, Verisk has appreciated Aruba's exceptional end-to-end support, he adds. "It's evident the entire company is oriented toward serving customers."

Making remote deployments a snap

On the technology front, Aruba's solutions enabled Verisk to leap-frog from all-onsite branch deployments to completing smaller SD-branches as zero-touch remote implementations, speeding the rollout and reducing associated costs.

"We've gone from onsite, multi-day deployments to getting smaller offices done in just less than a business day," reports Twu. "As we gain experience with Central, we expect to reduce similar branch deployments to within four to six hours."

Partnerships help maximize the benefits

Aruba's deep roster of IT integration partners has also been a plus, such as for maximizing ClearPass. "ClearPass offers so many customization options, we wanted to configure it in the most advantageous way," Twu says.

"We turned to Aruba's partner Optiv for help with architecting the solution, which improved upon the inherent ease of managing ClearPass as well as the initial deployment," he adds.

Lowering TCO by consolidating technologies, enhancing productivity, increasing speed to market and reducing costs

By eliminating various legacy technologies and standardizing on Aruba's SD-Branch platform, Verisk is already experiencing a variety of business and IT efficiencies, leading to increased productivity, improved speed to market, and reduced costs.

"Due to the many ways Central streamlines implementation and management, we're able to keep our IT staff lean," says Twu. "That's significant for a worldwide deployment."

In addition, Verisk is benefiting from economies of scale. "By consolidating onto a single Aruba platform, we expect to significantly lower our total cost of ownership," Twu says.

Revving Up with SD-WAN Orchestrator and SaaS Express

Next up for Verisk is incorporating more of Central's automation capabilities, including SD-WAN Orchestrator and SaaS Express.

With web-native SD-WAN Orchestrator, Verisk can achieve highly scalable, multi-tenant tunnel and route orchestration, automating the establishment of IPsec tunnels and distribution of traffic routes to all gateways.

This creates a sustainable and elastic environment, allowing Verisk to apply Dynamic Routing Policies across a hybrid WAN comprised of MPLS and Internet to optimize communications in real time, including during black-out and brown-out conditions.

"We're excited to collaborate with our Aruba team on ways our solutions can help us improve our performance, capability, and efficiency," Twu says.

Flexibly reducing traffic congestion while boosting security

Layering on SaaS Express will enable Central to determine the best path for SaaS applications and dynamically steering traffic to optimize user experiences. Combining such application-awareness with policy-based routing provides exceptional flexibility and cuts congestion while boosting security.

"We'll be working with Aruba to leverage more of the intelligence built into the platform by elevating the technologies and processes we've implemented thus far," says Twu.

Smart Infrastructure That's Future-Ready

As the type and density of devices continues to escalate throughout its multiple business units, Verisk is confident their intelligent SD-Branch platform will support new and evolving needs as they arise.

"We've gained a nimble, infinitely scalable platform that contributes significantly to our company's agility," Twu says. "Each of the many automation features within the platform drive out complexity, improve performance and, at the end of the day, boost our bottom line."

Perhaps best of all, the company is achieving its One Verisk user experience goals. "Overall, we wanted a secured and consistent user experience platform built on simplicity and as streamlined as walking into a local branch of a global coffeehouse. With Aruba's SD-Branch innovations, we're well on the way to achieving just that."