“ I knew that we needed Meraki for wireless network management, but the key was my relationship with CDW, which acted as an advocate for us throughout the project.”

— Darren SolankiCIO, Dover Federal Credit Union

CASE STUDYDover Federal Credit Union

CASE STUDY: Dover Federal Credit Union CDW.com | 800.800.4239 2

WHY?WHAT?WHO?Cisco Meraki’s technology provides an enterprise-level wireless network with streamlined cloud management, a perfect fit for Dover Federal Credit Union’s expanding networking needs but lean IT staff.

Dover Federal Credit Union partnered with CDW and Cisco to replace its existing wireless network with Cisco Meraki technology to simplify management and enable cloud-based monitoring.

Dover Federal Credit Union is the largest credit union in the state of Delaware, with a membership of more than 40,000. To learn more about the institution and branch locations, visit doverfcu.com.

CIO Darren Solanki takes the special mission of Dover Federal Credit Union quite seriously. Since its inception in 1958, when it was founded as a not-for-profit financial cooperative to serve the financial needs of Air Force and civilian workers at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Dover Federal has expanded to become the state of Delaware’s largest credit union.

“Credit unions don’t have customers or stockholders; we have members who share in the success of the institution,” Solanki says. “In all parts of the organization, including IT, we invest in and for our members. We’re taking our IT environment to the 21st century so that it serves as a center of innovation for Dover FCU.”

As part of that effort, and to alleviate some of the pressure on the credit union’s lean technology staff, Solanki is replacing an outdated wireless network with Cisco Meraki infrastructure in Dover FCU’s headquarters and six branches. The Meraki cloud-based solution represents a quantum leap in network quality while vastly simplifying network management and monitoring, he says.

“We needed an enterprise-grade network but didn’t have the right skill set to manage it in house,” says Solanki. “Meraki gives us an enterprise solution with the cloud-based Meraki Dashboard that has everything we need in a simplified interface that can be managed effectively by various users.”

Before Solanki joined Dover FCU last June, he was already impressed by the capabilities of Meraki wireless gear. Cisco

had sent a demo model to his previous employer, and it was also there that he began his partnership with CDW.

“I had tested Meraki before I came to Dover FCU, and I knew that we could benefit from Meraki’s ease of configuration and management,” Solanki says. “The step I took was to build on my relationship with CDW, which means a lot. It’s more than procurement — they acted as an advocate for us.”

Creating trust is how CDW maintains relationships with its customers, building that trust through the quality of the technology partners it chooses and with the advice and support of its technical specialists, says CDW Account Manager Connor Ryan. CDW never loses sight of what customers have at stake as they make substantial investments in IT that will have an impact on their businesses for years to come, he adds.

“Darren [Solanki] was able to see that the people he was dealing with at Cisco and CDW were superinvested in getting Dover Federal what it needed,” Ryan says. “We were able to confirm with our engineers that the technology was the right fit before we sent anything out. I think of my role as almost that of a consultant for the customer, asking what’s right for that organization — triple-checking with Cisco that we had the best options for Dover Federal Credit Union, and that the investments being made are in the right solutions.”

Credit Union Upgrades Wireless Network and Moves Management to the Cloud

CDW.com | 800.800.4239CASE STUDY: Dover Federal Credit Union 3

“Meraki is a tightly integrated solution, but many of our customers approach it the way Dover FCU did, piece by piece,” Shafer says. “They’ll come in to solve a specific problem with one part of the solution, and it grows from there. And when the organization grows, Meraki scales to meet the increasing need for network resources.”

The expansion of the credit union’s wireless deployment demonstrates Solanki’s confidence in the technology and in his partnership with CDW and Cisco, says Ryan. “He thought Meraki made sense from the beginning, but little did he know that we would end up redoing his entire wireless infrastructure at Dover,” he says. “CDW orchestrated a much more comprehensive project. We tore out everything, all their switches, all their old security devices, all their access points, and now he and his staff are happily able to manage all that remotely.”

Target TCODover Federal Credit Union has ample company in its strategy of streamlining network management with cloud technology, says Gartner Principal Research Analyst William Menezes.

Onsite management of wireless networks is declining and being replaced by cloud-based or hybrid solutions, particularly in midmarket organizations with multiple locations, he says.

“The total cost of ownership for cloud and hybrid solutions is most compelling for midsized businesses that have to

maintain the network for remote offices,” Menezes says. “They can not only reduce capital expenditures, but also create real savings in staff time and other resources.”

Moving wireless local area network management to a cloud provider such as Meraki means more than lifting the burden of day-to-day network traffic monitoring, points out Menezes. When cloud solutions automate crucial tasks such as software and firmware updates, they ensure that an organization is getting full benefit from the solution’s features

Start with SwitchesWhen Solanki, CDW and Cisco first conferred late last summer, the primary focus was on Meraki access-layer switches for ease of management and visibility into the wireless network, says Sahand Shafer, a commercial account executive for the Cisco Cloud Networking Group.

“We immediately got on a call and set up a demo,” Shafer says. “The technology was a perfect fit for Dover Federal Credit Union’s small IT staff, because they can manage all the switches at all seven locations through the cloud, without having to travel to the site to troubleshoot or make adjustments.”

Meraki designed its wireless products to be managed centrally through the cloud on a subscription basis. Once deployed by the customer, the switches, access points and other hardware automatically connect via Secure Sockets Layer to the Meraki cloud and download the selected configuration. From that point, network administrators can manage all the Meraki products in the network centrally through the cloud, with Layer 7 device and application visibility, as well as real-time, web-based diagnostics,

monitoring and reporting. The Meraki cloud automates optimization and virtual private network configuration, and also deploys software and firmware updates, security patches and application signatures.

The initial Meraki demo for Dover Federal highlighted the access layer switches but also showcased how the entire platform and array of products tie into the switches to create an integrated solution, Shafer says. Within a couple of months, Solanki reached out to CDW and Cisco again because he wanted to add Meraki aggregation switches to the Dover FCU network. In the course of those discussions, Solanki also purchased the Z1 Teleworker Gateway and some Meraki access points. In January, Solanki got on the phone with Cisco and CDW again and, after another demo, ordered the Meraki MX 400 security appliance.

*SOURCE: RightScale, “RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud Report,” January 2016

95% Percentage of organizations

that are running cloud applications or experimenting with

Infrastructure as a Service*

CDW.com | 800.800.4239CASE STUDY: Dover Federal Credit Union 4

Consider CultureDover Federal Credit Union had to hire a contractor to manage the switches on its previous wireless network, but that expense is no longer necessary with the current technology in place. In addition to saving money, this has a greater impact on the IT organization.

“When our staff can manage the network themselves, it helps with

employee retention and job satisfaction, and that’s important in the world of the credit union,” Solanki says. “When people feel they are making a larger contribution, it helps the organization. It also helps make it a place that people want to work for. From a cultural standpoint, it’s very important.”

Greater use of cloud services, virtualization and other up-to-date tools will lead to a changing role for IT at Dover Federal Credit Union, says Solanki. Reducing the burden of day-to-day maintenance tasks, such as network management, frees up time for IT to become a value-add for the credit union. Chosen carefully and used according to best practices drives efficiencies and new ways of doing business, he notes.

Overall, the wireless deployment obviates the need for the Dover Federal Credit Union IT team to monitor and fix things 24/7 and view the department as something to call in when things go wrong. “We’re moving to technologies such as Meraki that free IT up to be innovative and bring technologies to improve our members’ banking and experience and help the business grow.”

and that security vulnerabilities are addressed promptly, he says. “Those are functions that are incredibly time consuming for an IT staff but are critical to getting the full value from the solution and the network.”

While the wireless rollout is still ongoing, the financial institution and its IT staff are already reaping benefits. The organization enjoys streamlined implementation thanks to preconfigured hardware, as well as network access control and mobile device management capabilities.

What’s more, there’s the ease of cloud-based management. “Right off the bat, I was able to see at a glance all our switches in every location — what’s up and what’s down,” Solanki says. “I can see the entire environment on one dashboard.”

Meraki enables the credit union IT staff to copy or change hardware configurations on the fly, saving time and effort and making the network more responsive. In addition, the Layer 3 Meraki switches eliminate the need for routers in some of the credit union branches, which reduces network latency by eliminating hops between the Internet provider and users.

LEARN MORE Gain insight on the latest wireless network solutions at cdw.com/wifi.

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“When our staff can manage the network themselves, it helps

with employee retention and job satisfaction, and that’s important

in the world of the credit union.”

— Darren Solanki