USANA drives global business efficiency with Aruba EdgeConnect and boosts application performance 5X

Keeping global operations connected is a challenge for any IT team, but layering on in-house developed, very latency-sensitive applications made the situation particularly acute for USANA Health Sciences.

“Our global WAN connects users to our headquarters for everything from processing orders to tracking shipments to enrolling new sales associates,” explains Mark Taylor, Network Manager for the Salt Lake City-based company. “Even with a robust MPLS network we experienced latency and application performance problems. Unreliable carrier service in some parts of the world simply made matters worse.”

Modernization features Aruba SD-WAN

As a leading developer and manufacturer of high-quality nutritional supplements, healthy foods and personal care products, USANA serves nearly 600,000 active customers using a hybrid model that includes an extensive network of independent Associates as well as online sales. Manufacturing facilities, warehouses, branch offices and Associates in 23 countries all require high-performance connectivity.

To address the performance and reliability problems it was experiencing, USANA began a modernization journey that included overhauling the company’s core network, deploying a next-generation IT security infrastructure, and building a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN).

After researching SD-WAN vendors, USANA quickly narrowed the contenders to a handful, including Riverbed, before choosing Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN, a self-driving SD-WAN by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “We wanted a single platform to consolidate our branch infrastructure,” Taylor says. “EdgeConnect offered the most mature and complete SD-WAN solution, including unified WAN optimization, in a single platform.”

Rapid Deployment Nets Intelligence and SASE Capabilities

In addition to taking advantage of EdgeConnect’s intelligence advances such as path conditioning and dynamic path control to help the company securely accelerate its business operations, USANA is utilizing Aruba Orchestrator, for centralized and granular SD-WAN management, and Aruba Boost WAN Optimization, for accelerating applications and maximizing available bandwidth.

To fulfill its larger networking goals, such as enabling a secure access service edge (SASE) approach, USANA is also leveraging EdgeConnect’s integration with Zscaler, for connecting users securely and directly to the internet, as well as Palo Alto Networks’ next generation firewalls at each of the company’s sites.

Rolled out worldwide in half the time

Implementing the EdgeConnect platform proved fast and simple. For the deployment, trusted integration partner Presidio configured the EdgeConnect appliances and shipped them to USANA sites worldwide.

“It was easy to get a couple people at each site to swap out the old hardware with EdgeConnect and connect to the network,” Taylor says. “It’s just plug and play.”

Using this approach, USANA completed the modernization in just six weeks, less than half the expected time. “Because everything is centrally-managed through Orchestrator, we could then apply policies and configurations remotely,” Taylor says. “This approach saved us at least six weeks of project time.”

Improved Performance and Reliability with $140K Annual Savings

Once deployed, the SD-WAN initiative garnered immediate appreciation by USANA users at every site. “The second we brought up the EdgeConnect platform, people at sites that traditionally had performance problems were just amazed at the speed of their applications,” Taylor says.

An important contributor to improved application performance and voice communication quality is reduced latency. With the EdgeConnect platform lowering latency by 28%, the responsiveness of critical applications, including the home grown shopping cart and enrollment applications, has improved exponentially.

“Where it used to take forever for a page to load, now it pops up instantly,” says Taylor. “People can get their orders in more quickly and are much happier with the whole experience.”

Realizing significant savings and gaining supplier flexibility

USANA also appreciates the savings and flexibility the EdgeConnect adoption infuses. By retiring legacy routers and switches at its branches and other remote sites, the company is saving an estimated $140,000 per year.

EdgeConnect allows USANA to continue using its existing MPLS links while still under contract, and bonds the MPLS circuits with commercial broadband as a secondary link, along with 4G LTE as a tertiary connection in some especially challenging sites.

Longer term, the company anticipates to move away from expensive MPLS circuits, and their incumbent rigid contracts and rely solely on commercial broadband.

Network intelligence eliminates business disruptions

Another benefit of EdgeConnect is considerably enhanced business continuity, which USANA accomplishes by the platform’s automation capabilities to eliminate manual failover tasks during circuit outages.

In some regions of the world, carrier service can be down periodically, Taylor says. Previously, this caused a panic among branch staff and IT alike. Now, a circuit failure or brownout is completely nondisruptive to the business as EdgeConnect automatically fails over in under a millisecond.

“We’ve had many circuit outages and nobody notices anything,” Taylor says.

Enhancing Productivity, Experiences, and Profitability

Overall, USANA’s EdgeConnect deployment significantly enhances productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability. “In many cases we’re seeing a fivefold improvement in application performance,” Taylor says.

Further, the platform’s innovations have enabled USANA to regain control over connection quality and sourcing. “EdgeConnect not only finds the best available path to keep us operating, but we also have the leverage to hold carriers accountable for their service levels,” Taylor says. “It’s been outstanding.”