Collectors Does More with Less to Power Global Growth with Cato SASE Platform 

Baltimore Aircoil Replaces MPLS with Cato, Improving Voice Quality, Enabling Video Conferencing, and Increasing Agility Collectors is the global leader in grading and authentication of collectibles, powering the passion of millions of collectors worldwide. Each year, the company grades more than 13.5 million collectibles — from trading cards to autographs — through operations globally. Known for its tech-forward approach, Collectors’ rapid growth put new demands on the company’s network.  Collectors’ Director of Global Corporate IT, Jose Viera, was tasked with ensuring the network could scale securely and efficiently alongside the business. “Our customers are hardcore collectors,” Viera says. “We serve them with passion. We put their collectibles — and their collections — first.”  That passion fuels a culture of optimization inside Collectors’ global tech organization. “We aim for zero-touch IT,” Viera explains. “Automating all aspects of provisioning IT services globally.”  When Viera saw that Cato’s SASE platform could extend that automation to networking and security, bringing visibility, simplicity, and protection into a single pane of glass, he knew it was the right fit. “Cato made it simple,” he says. “Cato delivered AI-driven automation, robust security, and complete network visibility, all through one fully converged platform.”  Growth Outpacing the Legacy Network  As Collectors grew, adding new sites each year and supporting over a hundred global events annually, Collectors’ legacy network showed its limits. The company’s multi-vendor, appliance-based architecture led to unpredictable costs and heavy overhead.  “We were spending time managing the network instead of driving the business,” Viera says. “In the traditional model you work for the network,” Viera says. “We wanted the network to work for us so our resources could focus on our customers and their passion for collecting.”  Separate dashboards and policies for the varied vendors also slowed collaboration with their security team partners and created vulnerabilities for the business. “Networking and security weren’t unified,” Viera says. “We were both trying to protect the company, but we were doing it separately.”  To break down those silos and simplify operations for long-term growth, Viera set out to modernize the network.  A Shift Toward Convergence  His vision was shared by his leader, Vice President of Engineering for Internal Platforms, Tri Trinh, who sponsored the initiative. Coming from software engineering, Trinh had seen firsthand how convergence created the field of DevOps. “You gain efficiency by breaking down silos and unifying the stack.”  Trinh and Viera saw the opportunity to merge the network and security roadmaps, aligning both functions on one cohesive strategy with full buy-in from the cybersecurity team. “Both teams wanted the same thing — to scale securely and efficiently,” Trinh says.   That vision led them to the Cato SASE Platform. The platform embodied the same principles of convergence and efficiency that defined Collectors’ culture. The company had already seen its reliability firsthand at its China site, where Cato’s licensed in-country PoPs delivered consistent, compliant performance and full security. “We said: if it’s working in China, it’s going to work anywhere else,” Viera says. “Cato proved it could handle one of the most challenging markets in the world. It was a no-brainer.”  Deployment was smooth, aligning to the company’s zero-touch vision. “With Cato’s cloud-native platform and unified policy management, sites and firewalls were automatically configured and managed from one place, eliminating the manual work that had slowed us,” Viera says. “Once we had the Sockets connected, everything just worked. It was simple, unified, and fast.”  Two Teams, One Platform, More Security  With Cato’s single context across networking and security, Collectors gained a unified view of every event and flow. This enabled faster issue resolution, seamless collaboration between networking and security teams, and immediate action based on shared visibility.   Timothy Hall, a security engineer on Collectors’ cybersecurity team, has been a key partner to Viera’s organization and has seen the difference firsthand. “Cato’s single platform forces collaboration in a good way. You can’t hide decisions in siloes; everyone can see what’s happening and why.”  “The biggest win for us was visibility,” Hall says. “Alert monitoring and reporting are all in one platform. Investigation is faster because it’s a tab away, not a tool away.” For Hall, Cato’s converged platform represents the future. “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls,” he says. “If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.”  “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls. If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.” Timothy Hall, Security Engineer, Collectors  For Viera, the result is exactly what he and his partners envisioned. “Networking and security are finally one,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing.”  Doing More With Less The same unified visibility that improved security also unlocked new levels of efficiency. With Cato, the IT team operates with the same clarity and predictability that define Collectors’ culture of optimization.  For Viera, it starts with visibility — real-time insight into bandwidth and carrier performance they never had before. “We can see how traffic flows, where bandwidth is over- or under-used, and adjust accordingly,” he says. “That lets us plan capacity and avoid unnecessary spend, which is important when we are targeting ten percent cost optimization.”  Using Cato also decreases management overhead. When incidents arise, his team isolates issues in seconds. “We go to one place: the Cato console,” Viera says. “If we need to check traffic patterns or resolve a problem, it’s all there.  “Automation amplifies those gains, driving better service with fewer manual hops and errors and less friction.”  Trinh adds, “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.”  “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.” Tri Trinh, VP Engineering, Internal Platforms  Agility That Builds Credibility  For Viera, Cato turned the network from a limitation into an enabler. “We removed the global network as a concern,” he says. “Now we can focus on growing the business.”  That agility supports Collectors’ rapid expansion and event operations. Each new site follows a repeatable blueprint. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it connects automatically,” Viera says. “The blueprint applies, the firewall rules sync — it’s ready to go.”  The same reliability powers Collectors’ major events. At The National, the world’s largest sports-card convention, the company runs full grading operations with 150+ employees. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it works,” Viera says. “For an event like that, where revenue for five days is projected in millions, we can’t have a network failure.”  That same connectivity extends to the cloud. Collectors’ grading technology runs on AWS, and through Cato’s virtual Socket integration, every site connects securely and efficiently into AWS. “It’s simpler, faster, and more reliable than before,” Viera says.  Partnering to Deliver on the Customer Promise  For Collectors, Cato is more than a technology provider — it’s a partner in the company’s culture of continuous improvement. “We meet every Monday without fail,” Viera says. “Even a year and a half after implementation, we still review best practices.”  That collaboration mirrors how Collectors operates: refine, optimize, and grow. “Cato allows us to refocus on our business so we can deliver on the customer promise,” Viera says.  By unifying networking and security, Collectors has built a foundation for scale — a network that reflects its passion for precision and its commitment to continuous improvement. 

CIAL Dun & Bradstreet Improves Networking and Security in Latin American with Cato Collectors is the global leader in grading and authentication of collectibles, powering the passion of millions of collectors worldwide. Each year, the company grades more than 13.5 million collectibles — from trading cards to autographs — through operations globally. Known for its tech-forward approach, Collectors’ rapid growth put new demands on the company’s network.  Collectors’ Director of Global Corporate IT, Jose Viera, was tasked with ensuring the network could scale securely and efficiently alongside the business. “Our customers are hardcore collectors,” Viera says. “We serve them with passion. We put their collectibles — and their collections — first.”  That passion fuels a culture of optimization inside Collectors’ global tech organization. “We aim for zero-touch IT,” Viera explains. “Automating all aspects of provisioning IT services globally.”  When Viera saw that Cato’s SASE platform could extend that automation to networking and security, bringing visibility, simplicity, and protection into a single pane of glass, he knew it was the right fit. “Cato made it simple,” he says. “Cato delivered AI-driven automation, robust security, and complete network visibility, all through one fully converged platform.”  Growth Outpacing the Legacy Network  As Collectors grew, adding new sites each year and supporting over a hundred global events annually, Collectors’ legacy network showed its limits. The company’s multi-vendor, appliance-based architecture led to unpredictable costs and heavy overhead.  “We were spending time managing the network instead of driving the business,” Viera says. “In the traditional model you work for the network,” Viera says. “We wanted the network to work for us so our resources could focus on our customers and their passion for collecting.”  Separate dashboards and policies for the varied vendors also slowed collaboration with their security team partners and created vulnerabilities for the business. “Networking and security weren’t unified,” Viera says. “We were both trying to protect the company, but we were doing it separately.”  To break down those silos and simplify operations for long-term growth, Viera set out to modernize the network.  A Shift Toward Convergence  His vision was shared by his leader, Vice President of Engineering for Internal Platforms, Tri Trinh, who sponsored the initiative. Coming from software engineering, Trinh had seen firsthand how convergence created the field of DevOps. “You gain efficiency by breaking down silos and unifying the stack.”  Trinh and Viera saw the opportunity to merge the network and security roadmaps, aligning both functions on one cohesive strategy with full buy-in from the cybersecurity team. “Both teams wanted the same thing — to scale securely and efficiently,” Trinh says.   That vision led them to the Cato SASE Platform. The platform embodied the same principles of convergence and efficiency that defined Collectors’ culture. The company had already seen its reliability firsthand at its China site, where Cato’s licensed in-country PoPs delivered consistent, compliant performance and full security. “We said: if it’s working in China, it’s going to work anywhere else,” Viera says. “Cato proved it could handle one of the most challenging markets in the world. It was a no-brainer.”  Deployment was smooth, aligning to the company’s zero-touch vision. “With Cato’s cloud-native platform and unified policy management, sites and firewalls were automatically configured and managed from one place, eliminating the manual work that had slowed us,” Viera says. “Once we had the Sockets connected, everything just worked. It was simple, unified, and fast.”  Two Teams, One Platform, More Security  With Cato’s single context across networking and security, Collectors gained a unified view of every event and flow. This enabled faster issue resolution, seamless collaboration between networking and security teams, and immediate action based on shared visibility.   Timothy Hall, a security engineer on Collectors’ cybersecurity team, has been a key partner to Viera’s organization and has seen the difference firsthand. “Cato’s single platform forces collaboration in a good way. You can’t hide decisions in siloes; everyone can see what’s happening and why.”  “The biggest win for us was visibility,” Hall says. “Alert monitoring and reporting are all in one platform. Investigation is faster because it’s a tab away, not a tool away.” For Hall, Cato’s converged platform represents the future. “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls,” he says. “If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.”  “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls. If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.” Timothy Hall, Security Engineer, Collectors  For Viera, the result is exactly what he and his partners envisioned. “Networking and security are finally one,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing.”  Doing More With Less The same unified visibility that improved security also unlocked new levels of efficiency. With Cato, the IT team operates with the same clarity and predictability that define Collectors’ culture of optimization.  For Viera, it starts with visibility — real-time insight into bandwidth and carrier performance they never had before. “We can see how traffic flows, where bandwidth is over- or under-used, and adjust accordingly,” he says. “That lets us plan capacity and avoid unnecessary spend, which is important when we are targeting ten percent cost optimization.”  Using Cato also decreases management overhead. When incidents arise, his team isolates issues in seconds. “We go to one place: the Cato console,” Viera says. “If we need to check traffic patterns or resolve a problem, it’s all there.  “Automation amplifies those gains, driving better service with fewer manual hops and errors and less friction.”  Trinh adds, “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.”  “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.” Tri Trinh, VP Engineering, Internal Platforms  Agility That Builds Credibility  For Viera, Cato turned the network from a limitation into an enabler. “We removed the global network as a concern,” he says. “Now we can focus on growing the business.”  That agility supports Collectors’ rapid expansion and event operations. Each new site follows a repeatable blueprint. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it connects automatically,” Viera says. “The blueprint applies, the firewall rules sync — it’s ready to go.”  The same reliability powers Collectors’ major events. At The National, the world’s largest sports-card convention, the company runs full grading operations with 150+ employees. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it works,” Viera says. “For an event like that, where revenue for five days is projected in millions, we can’t have a network failure.”  That same connectivity extends to the cloud. Collectors’ grading technology runs on AWS, and through Cato’s virtual Socket integration, every site connects securely and efficiently into AWS. “It’s simpler, faster, and more reliable than before,” Viera says.  Partnering to Deliver on the Customer Promise  For Collectors, Cato is more than a technology provider — it’s a partner in the company’s culture of continuous improvement. “We meet every Monday without fail,” Viera says. “Even a year and a half after implementation, we still review best practices.”  That collaboration mirrors how Collectors operates: refine, optimize, and grow. “Cato allows us to refocus on our business so we can deliver on the customer promise,” Viera says.  By unifying networking and security, Collectors has built a foundation for scale — a network that reflects its passion for precision and its commitment to continuous improvement. 

Diamond Braces Uses Cato to Boost WAN Security, Performance, and Reliability Collectors is the global leader in grading and authentication of collectibles, powering the passion of millions of collectors worldwide. Each year, the company grades more than 13.5 million collectibles — from trading cards to autographs — through operations globally. Known for its tech-forward approach, Collectors’ rapid growth put new demands on the company’s network.  Collectors’ Director of Global Corporate IT, Jose Viera, was tasked with ensuring the network could scale securely and efficiently alongside the business. “Our customers are hardcore collectors,” Viera says. “We serve them with passion. We put their collectibles — and their collections — first.”  That passion fuels a culture of optimization inside Collectors’ global tech organization. “We aim for zero-touch IT,” Viera explains. “Automating all aspects of provisioning IT services globally.”  When Viera saw that Cato’s SASE platform could extend that automation to networking and security, bringing visibility, simplicity, and protection into a single pane of glass, he knew it was the right fit. “Cato made it simple,” he says. “Cato delivered AI-driven automation, robust security, and complete network visibility, all through one fully converged platform.”  Growth Outpacing the Legacy Network  As Collectors grew, adding new sites each year and supporting over a hundred global events annually, Collectors’ legacy network showed its limits. The company’s multi-vendor, appliance-based architecture led to unpredictable costs and heavy overhead.  “We were spending time managing the network instead of driving the business,” Viera says. “In the traditional model you work for the network,” Viera says. “We wanted the network to work for us so our resources could focus on our customers and their passion for collecting.”  Separate dashboards and policies for the varied vendors also slowed collaboration with their security team partners and created vulnerabilities for the business. “Networking and security weren’t unified,” Viera says. “We were both trying to protect the company, but we were doing it separately.”  To break down those silos and simplify operations for long-term growth, Viera set out to modernize the network.  A Shift Toward Convergence  His vision was shared by his leader, Vice President of Engineering for Internal Platforms, Tri Trinh, who sponsored the initiative. Coming from software engineering, Trinh had seen firsthand how convergence created the field of DevOps. “You gain efficiency by breaking down silos and unifying the stack.”  Trinh and Viera saw the opportunity to merge the network and security roadmaps, aligning both functions on one cohesive strategy with full buy-in from the cybersecurity team. “Both teams wanted the same thing — to scale securely and efficiently,” Trinh says.   That vision led them to the Cato SASE Platform. The platform embodied the same principles of convergence and efficiency that defined Collectors’ culture. The company had already seen its reliability firsthand at its China site, where Cato’s licensed in-country PoPs delivered consistent, compliant performance and full security. “We said: if it’s working in China, it’s going to work anywhere else,” Viera says. “Cato proved it could handle one of the most challenging markets in the world. It was a no-brainer.”  Deployment was smooth, aligning to the company’s zero-touch vision. “With Cato’s cloud-native platform and unified policy management, sites and firewalls were automatically configured and managed from one place, eliminating the manual work that had slowed us,” Viera says. “Once we had the Sockets connected, everything just worked. It was simple, unified, and fast.”  Two Teams, One Platform, More Security  With Cato’s single context across networking and security, Collectors gained a unified view of every event and flow. This enabled faster issue resolution, seamless collaboration between networking and security teams, and immediate action based on shared visibility.   Timothy Hall, a security engineer on Collectors’ cybersecurity team, has been a key partner to Viera’s organization and has seen the difference firsthand. “Cato’s single platform forces collaboration in a good way. You can’t hide decisions in siloes; everyone can see what’s happening and why.”  “The biggest win for us was visibility,” Hall says. “Alert monitoring and reporting are all in one platform. Investigation is faster because it’s a tab away, not a tool away.” For Hall, Cato’s converged platform represents the future. “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls,” he says. “If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.”  “If you want to move toward a Zero Trust architecture, you need integrated security controls. If it’s not integrated, you have gaps. Cato makes that practical.” Timothy Hall, Security Engineer, Collectors  For Viera, the result is exactly what he and his partners envisioned. “Networking and security are finally one,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing.”  Doing More With Less The same unified visibility that improved security also unlocked new levels of efficiency. With Cato, the IT team operates with the same clarity and predictability that define Collectors’ culture of optimization.  For Viera, it starts with visibility — real-time insight into bandwidth and carrier performance they never had before. “We can see how traffic flows, where bandwidth is over- or under-used, and adjust accordingly,” he says. “That lets us plan capacity and avoid unnecessary spend, which is important when we are targeting ten percent cost optimization.”  Using Cato also decreases management overhead. When incidents arise, his team isolates issues in seconds. “We go to one place: the Cato console,” Viera says. “If we need to check traffic patterns or resolve a problem, it’s all there.  “Automation amplifies those gains, driving better service with fewer manual hops and errors and less friction.”  Trinh adds, “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.”  “Every dollar we save lets us reinvest in automation and innovation. The only way to do that is to free the team from mundane tasks.” Tri Trinh, VP Engineering, Internal Platforms  Agility That Builds Credibility  For Viera, Cato turned the network from a limitation into an enabler. “We removed the global network as a concern,” he says. “Now we can focus on growing the business.”  That agility supports Collectors’ rapid expansion and event operations. Each new site follows a repeatable blueprint. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it connects automatically,” Viera says. “The blueprint applies, the firewall rules sync — it’s ready to go.”  The same reliability powers Collectors’ major events. At The National, the world’s largest sports-card convention, the company runs full grading operations with 150+ employees. “We just plug in a Cato Socket and it works,” Viera says. “For an event like that, where revenue for five days is projected in millions, we can’t have a network failure.”  That same connectivity extends to the cloud. Collectors’ grading technology runs on AWS, and through Cato’s virtual Socket integration, every site connects securely and efficiently into AWS. “It’s simpler, faster, and more reliable than before,” Viera says.  Partnering to Deliver on the Customer Promise  For Collectors, Cato is more than a technology provider — it’s a partner in the company’s culture of continuous improvement. “We meet every Monday without fail,” Viera says. “Even a year and a half after implementation, we still review best practices.”  That collaboration mirrors how Collectors operates: refine, optimize, and grow. “Cato allows us to refocus on our business so we can deliver on the customer promise,” Viera says.  By unifying networking and security, Collectors has built a foundation for scale — a network that reflects its passion for precision and its commitment to continuous improvement.