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Cato has received much praise and many industry awards from analysts over the years, but it’s our customers who know us the best. So, it’s especially gratifying to receive an award from a customer — the 2021 Best Supplier award in the Innovation Category from global manufacturer Gnutti Carlo Group. The award recognizes the high value of the WAN connectivity and security the Cato SASE Cloud delivers in support of the Gnutti Carlo Group’s digital transformation initiative.
“Thanks to the Cato platform and together with strategic services, the Gnutti Carlo Group has benefitted from a more structured, controlled, and secure ICT landscape across the entire company,” says Omar Moser, Group Chief Information Officer for the Gnutti Carlo Group. (You can read more about the award here and the Gnutti Carlo Group’s story here.)
Too Much Complexity!
Based in Brescia, Italy, the Gnutti Carlo Group is a leading global auto component manufacturer and partner to several OEMs active in the auto, truck, earthmoving, motorcycle, marine, generator sets, and e-mobility sectors. With annual revenues of 700 million euros and nearly 4,000 employees, the company has 16 plants in nine countries in Europe, America, and Asia.
The Group came to Cato to reign in the complexity of its network and security infrastructure built over the years from numerous mergers and acquisitions. ““Since 2000, we have started with an intensive program of internationalization, performing various acquisitions of companies of our sector and even competitors, each with different network and security architectures and policy engines,” says Moser. “It was difficult to keep policies aligned and prevent back doors and other threats.”
The company had several datacenters across its locations for local services and took advantage of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Azure, and hosted SAP cloud services. “We had it all: public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises applications,” says Moser.
Most locations were connected with IPsec VPNs, except for China, which was reached from Frankfort via a shared MPLS.
Moser realized that the only way to serve the business effectively was to centralize security and interconnection control among all locations and between plants, suppliers, and the cloud.
The Gnutti Carlo Group Centralizes WAN and Security, Boosts Digital Transformation with Cato | Customer Success StoryCato Does it All
He looked at several SD-WAN and SASE solutions, but Cato SASE was the only one that could deliver on all his requirements. “The other solutions couldn’t give us a single package with integrated security, networking, and remote access,” says Moser. He liked other things about the Cato solution, including its large number of globally dispersed points of presence, SASE architecture, single network and security dashboard, and forward-looking roadmap. Less tangible pluses were his great relationship with Cato and its excellent response time whenever he had any questions.
Moser entered into a three-month conditional purchase contract with Cato, after which he could close the contract if it didn’t meet expectations. He connected ten plants, two service providers, 650 remote access VPN users, and Microsoft Azure via Cato and deployed Cato’s SSE 360 security services across them.
A Platform for Digital Transformation
The results were so positive that he nominated Cato for the Best Supplier award. Network performance was excellent, even in China, where Moser saw a noticeable latency improvement over MPLS. Security was much improved thanks to firewall policy centralization and optimization and the ability to monitor traffic and block risky services that were previously open. “Standardizing firewall policies and knowing I can prevent intrusions and malware has allowed me to sleep a lot better,” says Moser.
Best of all, Cato has enhanced the group’s business agility for its digital transformation. “It is my job to be proactive and efficient,” says Moser. “If we need to open a new office we can do it easily. With Cato, we have standardization, an innovative approach, and a single partner we can grow with as we transform digitally,”
Satisfying and empowering our customers are Cato’s ultimate goals, which is why awards like this one from the Gnutti Carlo Group are music to our ears.