Transpo Services case study

Transpo Mobilizes World-Class Security and Performance with Cisco Small relocation company simplifies IT to deliver superior service to end customers.

Transpo ServicesIndustry Business mobility services

Location Grandview, MO

Number of employees 200

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Transpo Services case study

Managing Customers Who Are on the MoveTranspo Services has established a strong reputation as a trusted provider of IT solutions for the moving and relocation industry. Using sophisticated analytics, the firm helps customers manage and reduce their expenses through world-class reporting capabilities, efficient claims handling, and convenient flat-rate pricing.

Delivering this superior customer experience isn’t easy. Transpo’s IT team of just seven people supports 13 different organizations in the Cartwright group of companies that help federal government employees and military families move across the globe.

“We typically do not have the resources of large corporations that have an entire staff devoted to security or cybersecurity,” says Todd Stanley, IT Director, Transpo Services.

Transpo’s IT team was under growing pressure to do more with less, and its network infrastructure was hampered by poor performance as well as security and reliability issues.

“Email was down, Internet connections were slow, threats of ransomware were common. There was no control over bandwidth allocation and lack of ability to enforce priorities and policies,” says Stanley.

Transpo was looking for a comprehensive solution that would enable the firm to modernize its IT operations, as well as enhance security and performance. The solution would have to be simple to manage and scale easily to support future needs.

Empowering a Small IT OrganizationAfter considering a variety of options, Transpo deployed an end-to-end network foundation based on Cisco solutions, including Meraki MX100 firewalls, Cisco UCS, Cisco Switches, and Cisco Umbrella. The solution also includes VMware virtualization solutions to replace individual servers and siloed components.

Cisco Meraki MX100 Firewalls provide stateful firewall protection for all of Transpo’s employees, with Gigabit-speed performance and granular control over security and performance.

“All Internet routes go through the Meraki firewall,” says John House, Senior Network Administrator at Transpo. “We use threat protection to see all the traffic coming in. Advanced Meraki Protection (AMP) identifies and restricts potential malware and phishing attacks. I can also do traffic shaping, to tell each individual which port to use to go out to the Internet.”

The Cisco Meraki firewalls connect to Cisco Meraki 350 Cloud Managed Switches, which provide routing for the entire network. These affordable switches combine an enterprise-class performance with easy cloud management via the intuitive, browser-based Meraki dashboard.

“The small business switches have a great graphical interface that makes a huge difference,” says Stanley. “I can easily see what’s going on. Cisco support is also incredibly helpful. With a very small IT team, there’s no time to mess around with things that don’t work.”

Transpo Services case study

“I’m just one person, and we don’t have time for something to breakdown,” says House. “I need something simple with great support, so I can get issues figured out and fixed and move on to the next challenge. That’s why Cisco and Meraki caught my fancy. I don’t have to time figure out all the Cisco IOS details. I set it up and it works.”

To help ensure network services remain available even if an issue does occur, Transpo set up a site-to-site VPN to back up jobs and replicate data to a disaster recovery (DR) site, using its Cisco Meraki MX100 Firewall.

“The solution makes our lives totally easy,” says House. “If something does go down, we have enough redundancy built into the system to where we can recover. That’s huge.”

Network security with the new solution is stronger than ever under Cisco Umbrella, which also helps minimize the chance of unexpected service outages. e

“We currently have 200 users of laptops and desktop computers on Cisco Umbrella,” says House. “When people take the laptops home, even when they are outside the office, they remain protected. We are finding out so many things that Umbrella does that I wasn’t even thinking about when we initially purchased it.”

Virtualization was a major part of Transpo’s network upgrade, so the organization set up three Cisco UCS 220 host servers to run its VMware virtual machines (VMs). These Cisco UCS servers are most versatile, general-purpose enterprise infrastructure and application servers in the industry, and host nearly 50 VM server applications for employees across the company. In addition, Cisco SG500 10GB Stack Switches provide connectivity to the host.

To provide additional protection against malware and viruses, Transpo deployed Cisco Umbrella cloud security platform. This provides the first line of defense against threats on the Internet wherever users go, blocking malicious attacks and DDOS attacks before a connection is established. Cisco Umbrella can also help identify where the next attack will

Security and Simplicity Mean Better Customer Service

With its complete Cisco solution in place, Transpo has rebuilt its company into a more secure, manageable organization. The solution’s intuitive, cloud-based management capabilities have freed up IT to focus on serving customers better, instead of worrying about the network.

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Transpo Services case study

Robust cloud-based management tools help Transpo’s IT team maximize network performance and security for every user—and reduce operational costs by about 10 percent.

“We can now budget for future infrastructure growth, while gaining more flexibility for employees to work from home and stay securely connected anywhere they go,” says House. “That’s the real benefit of having an easy-to-use, remotely secure log-in for the dashboards to control and configure our Cisco solution.”

With its highly scalable, flexible solution in place, Transpo is confident in its ability to continue to grow its network to support future needs.

“Our Cisco solution provided a huge growth opportunity and cost savings for the company, and it’s an amazing improvement over our legacy systems,” says Stanley. “When our employees are happy, that’s good for our customers as well.”

“ Our Cisco solution provided a huge growth opportunity and cost-savings for the company, and it’s an amazing improvement over our legacy systems. When our employees are happy, that’s good for our customers as well.”Todd Stanley

IT Director, Transpo Services

Product listWireless

• Cisco Meraki wirelessRouting, Switching, and Servers

• Cisco SG500 Series Stack Switches• Cisco Meraki 350 Cloud Managed

Switches• Cisco UCS 220 ServersSecurity

• Cisco Meraki MX100 Firewall• Cisco UmbrellaServices

• Cisco Smartnet

For more informationTo learn more about Cisco SMB solutions, visit www.cisco.com/go/smb.

© 2018 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1110R)