Devro Boosts Network Visibility and Enhances the Hybrid Work Experience with Cato

Manufacturing

Devro Boosts Network Visibility and Enhances the Hybrid Work Experience with Cato

Devro Investigates Firewall Replacements, Chooses Cato SASE Cloud

It was clear that Devro needed to replace its aging firewall appliances, which is why it started working with its technology partner to investigate options, including those from firewall appliance vendors. It soon became evident, however, that there were business benefits to a single solution encompassing firewalls and other functions, such as a secure Web gateway and even SD-WAN connectivity. “Some of our manufacturing plants are in remote locations where connectivity wasn’t always great,” says Cappie. “That is what made Cato’s SASE, SD-WAN solution so appealing. Once we saw what Cato could do for us in terms of SD-WAN, remote access, and security, we started discussing those capabilities with competing vendors.”

Cato SASE Cloud optimally connects all enterprise network resources, including branch locations, the hybrid workforce, and physical and cloud data centers, into a secure global, cloud-native service. Connecting a location to Cato is a matter of installing a simple Cato Socket appliance that links automatically to one of Cato’s 75+ Points of Presence (PoPs) and its fast, global private backbone. The Cato Socket, Cato’s edge SD-WAN device, extends the Cato SASE Cloud to locations, providing prioritized and resilient connectivity over multiple last-mile links. At the same time, Cato Client and Clientless access enables secure and optimized application access for users everywhere, including at home and on the road.

Cato’s cloud-native security edge, Cato SSE 360, converges a Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and Remote Browser Isolation (RBI). It fully enforces granular corporate access policies on all applications on-premises and in the cloud, protecting users against threats and preventing sensitive data loss.

It soon became apparent that Cato was the only solution that combined so many critical functions under a single SASE and management pane of glass. “Other solutions felt like a bunch of separate pieces bolted together and had too many add-ons and options,” says Cappie.

“Cato’s single pane of glass made a big difference for us in simplification, standardization, and troubleshooting across all those functions and using role-based access to divide the management of areas, regions, or subsets of users amongst the team,” Cappie said. Getting support directly from Cato, rather than a third party was also appealing.

With Cato’s single sign-on users would no longer have to log onto the VPN every day for remote access or the Web gateway client for Internet access, and IT would get 24/7 visibility across user and remote office systems. “Thanks to Cato we’ve been able to run vulnerability scans, security updates, and policies across all connected systems any time night or day,” said Cappie.

Cappie also liked that deployment of the Cato SASE Cloud solution would be seamless and non-disruptive. “It was clear that the other solutions would have required more planned downtime,” says Cappie. “From a business perspective, Cato’s easy deployment was a big selling point.”

At Last, Reliability and a Single Pane of Glass

Deployment of the Cato solution was easy as promised and Cappie found Cato support responsive–not only for user and IT troubleshooting but adding new features. “There were a number of things we and other customers suggested that ended up in the platform within a matter of months,” says Cappie. “With the other vendors, it would more likely have taken years, if it ever happened.” And Cato was always there to suggest ways to use its solution more effectively. “We leaned heavily on Cato’s professional services team, which was really good at coming back and saying that we’d be better off doing something one way instead of another or trying this other option.”

What Cappie likes best about the Cato solution is its ease of management. “The platform interface is well laid out,” says Cappie. “It is so easy to access lots of detailed information, or just the high-level stats if that is all you need. It is great to have that dashboard with the overview showing all your sites online and how many users are connected at any given time and the event screen is incredibly useful. Our old firewall interface seems so archaic in comparison.” And all of Cato’s functions are baked in, rather than bolted on as options. “In terms of being intuitive, Cato’s platform is undeniably the best possible solution,” Added Cappie. 

Reliability and performance have been excellent with Cato and user feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “Users love that once they do that initial sign-on, the VPN is always on and they can just do their work and forget about it,” Cappie said. “Cato’s user experience, easy management, and robust security have come together to make a significant difference for everyone at our company, even at the board level.”

“The platform interface is well laid out,” says Brian Cappie. “It’s so easy to access lots of detailed, useful information, or just the high-level stats if that’s all you need.”

“Some of our manufacturing plants are in remote locations where connectivity wasn’t always great,” says Brian Cappie. “That is what made Cato’s SASE, SD-WAN solution so appealing. Once we saw what Cato could do for us in terms of SD-WAN, remote access, and security, we started discussing those capabilities with competing vendors.”

“Cato’s single pane of glass made a big difference for us in simplification, standardization, and troubleshooting across all those functions and using role-based access to divide the management of areas, regions, or subsets of users amongst the team,” Brian Cappie said.