How SolarWinds Gained Security Visibility, Reliable Performance, and Time Back by Consolidating with Cato

Baltimore Aircoil Replaces MPLS with Cato, Improving Voice Quality, Enabling Video Conferencing, and Increasing Agility Summary SolarWinds set out to consolidate a network and security stack built from five disparate vendors, ultimately replacing them with the Cato SASE Platform in only three months with no outages. The team now has SD-WAN performance that is more predictable for the business, security capabilities it couldn't easily run before, and dozens of hours back every quarter. Key Results Replaced five networking and security tools with one platform, migrating 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users in three months with no outages Gained SD-WAN performance that is faster on average and more predictable than the previous set-up Saved dozens of hours each quarter previously spent on patching physical appliances Added CASB, DLP, and full TLS inspection, capabilities the previous stack made hard to run A High Bar for Reliability and Security For more than 25 years, SolarWinds has helped IT teams around the world monitor and understand what's happening across their networks, servers, databases, and cloud environments. It's a business built on visibility. So it's fitting that when SolarWinds turned that same scrutiny on its own infrastructure, the standard it held itself to was just as high. "Our goal is always to be as reliable and secure as possible," says Martin Vana, manager of network and UC infrastructure at SolarWinds. "That way, we can materialize as much value as possible. That's our major goal." For Vana, that means staying "at the forefront of security, at the edge of what's technically available, but also mature." That same goal, he says, "is what's driven us towards consolidation, better security, and better connectivity," and, ultimately, to Cato Networks and the Cato SASE Platform. That drive had practical roots. SolarWinds trusted its existing networking and security tools, but running them separately took up a lot of the team's time and made it harder to add the security capabilities it wanted. When contracts for its SD-WAN and firewalls came up for renewal simultaneously, Vana and Michael Bishop, a 12-year veteran and lead network engineer, set out to change that. The Cost of Running it All Separately In practice, running the current stack meant managing a different vendor, console, and process for nearly everything. "We had good pieces of technology in our routing, our SD-WAN, our firewalls," Bishop says, "but they were separate. Once you start to scale out, that gets harder and harder to cleanly manage." Patching was the clearest pain point: physical appliances were patched one at a time, and the time that took was time not spent strengthening security. That same complexity meant CASB and DLP stayed on the wish list and TLS inspection stayed limited. "It was hard to do, and it didn't work too well before," Bishop says. Remote access told a similar story, a burden on both sides. The team maintained its own VPN gateways, and "our ability to put those close to the users was limited," Bishop says. With only half a dozen locations, employees connected to whichever gateway was closest, which wasn't always close, and reaching a different network meant disconnecting and switching to another gateway or portal. Across the stack, the pattern was the same: point products each adding its own operational burden. Bringing everything onto one platform meant, for the first time, one place to manage and monitor it all. A Thorough Evaluation and Quick Deployment SolarWinds didn't make the decision to change lightly. "We looked at all of them," Vana says of the SASE market. One detail changed the conversation with Cato early: the Global Private Backbone. "That was the feature that opened our minds," Vana recalls. Bishop adds that "it wasn't just built on top of other hyperscalers like AWS or Google." For Bishop, the platform itself sealed it. "It felt like a platform built for a network person," he says. "I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked. It all made sense: how I'd configure it, how I'd maintain it." "It felt like a platform built for a network person. I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds With the decision made, the real work happened before the contract was ever signed. SolarWinds got early trial access to Cato's management console, the Cato Management Application, and used it to stage configurations in advance. The team worked with Cato on-site to map out the entire migration, site by site. "Once the plan was in place, we waited for the contract, then for the Cato Sockets to show up, and then we hit go," Bishop says. From there, the full rollout took just three months, covering 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users with no outages. Putting SD-WAN to the Test Throughout the evaluation and rollout, one area got the closest scrutiny: SD-WAN. "Some vendors say they have SD-WAN, and it's really just dynamic orchestration of a couple tunnels, nothing more," Bishop says. What helped move him initially was that private backbone. His old SD-WAN ran over the public internet, where, Bishop says, "performance wasn't as protected or guaranteed." What sealed it was seeing his checklist confirmed. Cato's training walked through the specific features Bishop looks for in any serious SD-WAN: QoS and prioritization, TCP acceleration, packet loss mitigation, automatic failover across both circuits. Each one was there. Repeated testing backed it up. Cato proved more powerful than the previous SD-WAN through its consistency, the direct result of that private backbone. "Our old setup had great highs and rough lows," Bishop says. "Cato is consistently good, every time. On average, it comes out faster, and a lot more predictable." That predictability matters beyond the network team: consistent throughput means the business can count on steady performance for its people, day in and day out. Vana, who also oversees SolarWinds' voice and video infrastructure, points to another benefit. "We can see exactly what's happening on a Zoom or Teams call now," he says. "We can tell someone right away: this is on your end, or this is ours, and we're on it." Getting the Reliable and Secure Platform Running on Cato's cloud-based platform, the team was able to easily add and turn on CASB, DLP, and TLS inspection across all users. And with everything flowing through one platform, visibility got deeper, too. "We have visibility now into DNS activity, encrypted traffic, and where sensitive data is moving," Bishop says. "It's visibility we didn't have before." For employees, remote access got simpler too. "Client connectivity is better across the board," Vana says. "Cato is always on," Bishop adds. "Our team doesn't have to switch gateways or disconnect and reconnect anymore, whether they're home or in the office." For Vana's team, patching is what changed most. Once a tedious, site-by-site slog of scheduled firmware updates and manual rollouts, it now happens in the cloud and is managed centrally. Cato Sockets update automatically, and the clients keep themselves current. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites," Bishop says. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds Good Ways to Spend the Time With the migration behind them, SolarWinds' network team is shifting from getting the platform running to getting the most out of it. Vana says the team is now "perfecting the deployment," and fine-tuning the new capabilities they've added, with plans to turn attention to projects that had been sitting on the back burner, including new data center builds. For Bishop, the shift is less about free time and more about better use of it. "I don't necessarily have more free time," he says. "But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." "I don't necessarily have more free time. But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds For Vana, it adds up to something bigger than convenience. "Instead of doing the tedious, tactical work, the team gets to focus on what actually adds value: security and connectivity."

CIAL Dun & Bradstreet Improves Networking and Security in Latin American with Cato Summary SolarWinds set out to consolidate a network and security stack built from five disparate vendors, ultimately replacing them with the Cato SASE Platform in only three months with no outages. The team now has SD-WAN performance that is more predictable for the business, security capabilities it couldn't easily run before, and dozens of hours back every quarter. Key Results Replaced five networking and security tools with one platform, migrating 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users in three months with no outages Gained SD-WAN performance that is faster on average and more predictable than the previous set-up Saved dozens of hours each quarter previously spent on patching physical appliances Added CASB, DLP, and full TLS inspection, capabilities the previous stack made hard to run A High Bar for Reliability and Security For more than 25 years, SolarWinds has helped IT teams around the world monitor and understand what's happening across their networks, servers, databases, and cloud environments. It's a business built on visibility. So it's fitting that when SolarWinds turned that same scrutiny on its own infrastructure, the standard it held itself to was just as high. "Our goal is always to be as reliable and secure as possible," says Martin Vana, manager of network and UC infrastructure at SolarWinds. "That way, we can materialize as much value as possible. That's our major goal." For Vana, that means staying "at the forefront of security, at the edge of what's technically available, but also mature." That same goal, he says, "is what's driven us towards consolidation, better security, and better connectivity," and, ultimately, to Cato Networks and the Cato SASE Platform. That drive had practical roots. SolarWinds trusted its existing networking and security tools, but running them separately took up a lot of the team's time and made it harder to add the security capabilities it wanted. When contracts for its SD-WAN and firewalls came up for renewal simultaneously, Vana and Michael Bishop, a 12-year veteran and lead network engineer, set out to change that. The Cost of Running it All Separately In practice, running the current stack meant managing a different vendor, console, and process for nearly everything. "We had good pieces of technology in our routing, our SD-WAN, our firewalls," Bishop says, "but they were separate. Once you start to scale out, that gets harder and harder to cleanly manage." Patching was the clearest pain point: physical appliances were patched one at a time, and the time that took was time not spent strengthening security. That same complexity meant CASB and DLP stayed on the wish list and TLS inspection stayed limited. "It was hard to do, and it didn't work too well before," Bishop says. Remote access told a similar story, a burden on both sides. The team maintained its own VPN gateways, and "our ability to put those close to the users was limited," Bishop says. With only half a dozen locations, employees connected to whichever gateway was closest, which wasn't always close, and reaching a different network meant disconnecting and switching to another gateway or portal. Across the stack, the pattern was the same: point products each adding its own operational burden. Bringing everything onto one platform meant, for the first time, one place to manage and monitor it all. A Thorough Evaluation and Quick Deployment SolarWinds didn't make the decision to change lightly. "We looked at all of them," Vana says of the SASE market. One detail changed the conversation with Cato early: the Global Private Backbone. "That was the feature that opened our minds," Vana recalls. Bishop adds that "it wasn't just built on top of other hyperscalers like AWS or Google." For Bishop, the platform itself sealed it. "It felt like a platform built for a network person," he says. "I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked. It all made sense: how I'd configure it, how I'd maintain it." "It felt like a platform built for a network person. I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds With the decision made, the real work happened before the contract was ever signed. SolarWinds got early trial access to Cato's management console, the Cato Management Application, and used it to stage configurations in advance. The team worked with Cato on-site to map out the entire migration, site by site. "Once the plan was in place, we waited for the contract, then for the Cato Sockets to show up, and then we hit go," Bishop says. From there, the full rollout took just three months, covering 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users with no outages. Putting SD-WAN to the Test Throughout the evaluation and rollout, one area got the closest scrutiny: SD-WAN. "Some vendors say they have SD-WAN, and it's really just dynamic orchestration of a couple tunnels, nothing more," Bishop says. What helped move him initially was that private backbone. His old SD-WAN ran over the public internet, where, Bishop says, "performance wasn't as protected or guaranteed." What sealed it was seeing his checklist confirmed. Cato's training walked through the specific features Bishop looks for in any serious SD-WAN: QoS and prioritization, TCP acceleration, packet loss mitigation, automatic failover across both circuits. Each one was there. Repeated testing backed it up. Cato proved more powerful than the previous SD-WAN through its consistency, the direct result of that private backbone. "Our old setup had great highs and rough lows," Bishop says. "Cato is consistently good, every time. On average, it comes out faster, and a lot more predictable." That predictability matters beyond the network team: consistent throughput means the business can count on steady performance for its people, day in and day out. Vana, who also oversees SolarWinds' voice and video infrastructure, points to another benefit. "We can see exactly what's happening on a Zoom or Teams call now," he says. "We can tell someone right away: this is on your end, or this is ours, and we're on it." Getting the Reliable and Secure Platform Running on Cato's cloud-based platform, the team was able to easily add and turn on CASB, DLP, and TLS inspection across all users. And with everything flowing through one platform, visibility got deeper, too. "We have visibility now into DNS activity, encrypted traffic, and where sensitive data is moving," Bishop says. "It's visibility we didn't have before." For employees, remote access got simpler too. "Client connectivity is better across the board," Vana says. "Cato is always on," Bishop adds. "Our team doesn't have to switch gateways or disconnect and reconnect anymore, whether they're home or in the office." For Vana's team, patching is what changed most. Once a tedious, site-by-site slog of scheduled firmware updates and manual rollouts, it now happens in the cloud and is managed centrally. Cato Sockets update automatically, and the clients keep themselves current. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites," Bishop says. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds Good Ways to Spend the Time With the migration behind them, SolarWinds' network team is shifting from getting the platform running to getting the most out of it. Vana says the team is now "perfecting the deployment," and fine-tuning the new capabilities they've added, with plans to turn attention to projects that had been sitting on the back burner, including new data center builds. For Bishop, the shift is less about free time and more about better use of it. "I don't necessarily have more free time," he says. "But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." "I don't necessarily have more free time. But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds For Vana, it adds up to something bigger than convenience. "Instead of doing the tedious, tactical work, the team gets to focus on what actually adds value: security and connectivity."

Diamond Braces Uses Cato to Boost WAN Security, Performance, and Reliability Summary SolarWinds set out to consolidate a network and security stack built from five disparate vendors, ultimately replacing them with the Cato SASE Platform in only three months with no outages. The team now has SD-WAN performance that is more predictable for the business, security capabilities it couldn't easily run before, and dozens of hours back every quarter. Key Results Replaced five networking and security tools with one platform, migrating 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users in three months with no outages Gained SD-WAN performance that is faster on average and more predictable than the previous set-up Saved dozens of hours each quarter previously spent on patching physical appliances Added CASB, DLP, and full TLS inspection, capabilities the previous stack made hard to run A High Bar for Reliability and Security For more than 25 years, SolarWinds has helped IT teams around the world monitor and understand what's happening across their networks, servers, databases, and cloud environments. It's a business built on visibility. So it's fitting that when SolarWinds turned that same scrutiny on its own infrastructure, the standard it held itself to was just as high. "Our goal is always to be as reliable and secure as possible," says Martin Vana, manager of network and UC infrastructure at SolarWinds. "That way, we can materialize as much value as possible. That's our major goal." For Vana, that means staying "at the forefront of security, at the edge of what's technically available, but also mature." That same goal, he says, "is what's driven us towards consolidation, better security, and better connectivity," and, ultimately, to Cato Networks and the Cato SASE Platform. That drive had practical roots. SolarWinds trusted its existing networking and security tools, but running them separately took up a lot of the team's time and made it harder to add the security capabilities it wanted. When contracts for its SD-WAN and firewalls came up for renewal simultaneously, Vana and Michael Bishop, a 12-year veteran and lead network engineer, set out to change that. The Cost of Running it All Separately In practice, running the current stack meant managing a different vendor, console, and process for nearly everything. "We had good pieces of technology in our routing, our SD-WAN, our firewalls," Bishop says, "but they were separate. Once you start to scale out, that gets harder and harder to cleanly manage." Patching was the clearest pain point: physical appliances were patched one at a time, and the time that took was time not spent strengthening security. That same complexity meant CASB and DLP stayed on the wish list and TLS inspection stayed limited. "It was hard to do, and it didn't work too well before," Bishop says. Remote access told a similar story, a burden on both sides. The team maintained its own VPN gateways, and "our ability to put those close to the users was limited," Bishop says. With only half a dozen locations, employees connected to whichever gateway was closest, which wasn't always close, and reaching a different network meant disconnecting and switching to another gateway or portal. Across the stack, the pattern was the same: point products each adding its own operational burden. Bringing everything onto one platform meant, for the first time, one place to manage and monitor it all. A Thorough Evaluation and Quick Deployment SolarWinds didn't make the decision to change lightly. "We looked at all of them," Vana says of the SASE market. One detail changed the conversation with Cato early: the Global Private Backbone. "That was the feature that opened our minds," Vana recalls. Bishop adds that "it wasn't just built on top of other hyperscalers like AWS or Google." For Bishop, the platform itself sealed it. "It felt like a platform built for a network person," he says. "I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked. It all made sense: how I'd configure it, how I'd maintain it." "It felt like a platform built for a network person. I could understand how everything connected, how the network worked." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds With the decision made, the real work happened before the contract was ever signed. SolarWinds got early trial access to Cato's management console, the Cato Management Application, and used it to stage configurations in advance. The team worked with Cato on-site to map out the entire migration, site by site. "Once the plan was in place, we waited for the contract, then for the Cato Sockets to show up, and then we hit go," Bishop says. From there, the full rollout took just three months, covering 12 sites and roughly 3,000 users with no outages. Putting SD-WAN to the Test Throughout the evaluation and rollout, one area got the closest scrutiny: SD-WAN. "Some vendors say they have SD-WAN, and it's really just dynamic orchestration of a couple tunnels, nothing more," Bishop says. What helped move him initially was that private backbone. His old SD-WAN ran over the public internet, where, Bishop says, "performance wasn't as protected or guaranteed." What sealed it was seeing his checklist confirmed. Cato's training walked through the specific features Bishop looks for in any serious SD-WAN: QoS and prioritization, TCP acceleration, packet loss mitigation, automatic failover across both circuits. Each one was there. Repeated testing backed it up. Cato proved more powerful than the previous SD-WAN through its consistency, the direct result of that private backbone. "Our old setup had great highs and rough lows," Bishop says. "Cato is consistently good, every time. On average, it comes out faster, and a lot more predictable." That predictability matters beyond the network team: consistent throughput means the business can count on steady performance for its people, day in and day out. Vana, who also oversees SolarWinds' voice and video infrastructure, points to another benefit. "We can see exactly what's happening on a Zoom or Teams call now," he says. "We can tell someone right away: this is on your end, or this is ours, and we're on it." Getting the Reliable and Secure Platform Running on Cato's cloud-based platform, the team was able to easily add and turn on CASB, DLP, and TLS inspection across all users. And with everything flowing through one platform, visibility got deeper, too. "We have visibility now into DNS activity, encrypted traffic, and where sensitive data is moving," Bishop says. "It's visibility we didn't have before." For employees, remote access got simpler too. "Client connectivity is better across the board," Vana says. "Cato is always on," Bishop adds. "Our team doesn't have to switch gateways or disconnect and reconnect anymore, whether they're home or in the office." For Vana's team, patching is what changed most. Once a tedious, site-by-site slog of scheduled firmware updates and manual rollouts, it now happens in the cloud and is managed centrally. Cato Sockets update automatically, and the clients keep themselves current. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites," Bishop says. "We save dozens of hours every quarter that used to go into manually patching multiple networking technologies across our sites." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds Good Ways to Spend the Time With the migration behind them, SolarWinds' network team is shifting from getting the platform running to getting the most out of it. Vana says the team is now "perfecting the deployment," and fine-tuning the new capabilities they've added, with plans to turn attention to projects that had been sitting on the back burner, including new data center builds. For Bishop, the shift is less about free time and more about better use of it. "I don't necessarily have more free time," he says. "But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." "I don't necessarily have more free time. But I have a lot of good ways to spend the time I have." Michael Bishop, Lead Network Engineer, SolarWinds For Vana, it adds up to something bigger than convenience. "Instead of doing the tedious, tactical work, the team gets to focus on what actually adds value: security and connectivity."