CASE STUDY | TOP ENERGY FIRM

Case Study: Top Energy Firm
Deploys Versa SASE
INDUSTRY

Comprehensive “Work-From-Anywhere” with Versa SASE

Oil & Gas Integrated

Company Profile

CHALLENGES

A large, publicly traded energy company operating in all areas of the• Give WFH users the assured
experience to a voice applicationthat was hosted in their enterprise.
• A private connection to theenterprise network for WFH users.
• Secure access to contractors toconnect to two different enterprisenetworks from their client device.
• Multi-factor authentication on
the client device via Google orMicrosoft authentication.
• Need for an “always-on” highavailability approach with quick
failover options.
• Complex network infrastructure inplace.

RESULTS• Cost reduction through licensing
and product consolidation.
• Control and visibility over theirbranch sites with robust multitenancy and analytics.
• Enhanced security with embedded
next generation firewall andencrypted private access.
• Simplification of their networking
architecture for ease of IT admin.
• Strategic position to take on
more transformation projects andinitiatives.

oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining,distribution and marketing, power generation and trading. The company
has a global presence in almost 100 countries worldwide and employs
close to 80,000 employees with almost 500 corporate and field sites. Thecompany has a market capital of over $50 billion and made over $200
billion in the past year.

Challenges Facing Top Energy Firm
With the growing challenges of adapting to a mobile and disparate
workforce, this energy firm needed to give their WFH users the flexibility
and performance needed to perform their duties. One challenge was giving
WFH users the assured experience to a high-bandwidth voice applicationthat was hosted in their enterprise. In addition, WFH users also neededa private connection to the enterprise network to be able to access andperform day-to-day functions on their custom network applications.
Outside of their WFH users, the company needed to give secure access tocontractors who needed to connect to two different enterprise networks
from their client device, a requirement that their incumbent solution,
Zscaler, was unable to deliver.
In addition to meeting the demands of a remote workforce, this energy firm
had high standards for their security solution: requirement such as multi-factor
authentication on the client device via Google or Microsoft authentication, a“always-on” high availability approach with quick failover options, and support
for the provisioning phase prior to login. Lastly, this energy firm alreadyhad a complex network infrastructure in place: with legacy Data Center hub
routers and deployment plans for new hardware appliances that handle bothswitching and WiFi and a WAN optimization solution.

Beating Out the Competition
Facing challenges from incumbent Zscaler, Versa was able to quickly
meet the energy company’s various use cases and requirements. For WFH
users leveraging their voice application, Versa was able to show highperformance, availability, and secure access whereas Zscaler and anotherincumbent VPN competitor was unable to do so. Even though the energy
firm had already purchased over 50,000 seats of Zscaler and leveraging

CASE STUDY | TOP ENERGY FIRM

Zscaler for cloud security capabilities at their branch sites, they could not get Zscaler to work for WFH users accessing
their hosted voice application nor could Zscaler protect access for the energy firm’s contractors. Zscaler simply cannot
secure access to two different enterprise networks from a single client device. Therefore, this top energy firm had tolook elsewhere for a solution to protect their contractors.
In addition to incumbent competitors failing to meet their requirements, the energy firm wanted to ensure that any
solution they bring in needed to work with their existing and future infrastructure. While they originally intended tobring in market competitor Palo Alto for their SASE implementation, they realized that Versa was able to easily integratewith their switching, Wi-Fi, and WAN optimization vendors to give them both the SD-WAN and “work-from-anywhere”
services that they were looking for. Additionally, Versa’s next generation firewall (NGFW) proved to be superior to Palo
Alto’s NGFW, and the energy firm was able to consolidate costs by completely ripping and replacing Palo Alto NGFW atalmost 400 branch sites with Versa NGFW, which was already included with the Versa SASE offering.

A Versa SASE Win
Originally, Versa was only intended to offer Secure SD-WAN services but have now won more use cases in the energyfirm’s SASE strategy. To date: Versa protects the firm’s expansive networks including their next generation field
network that includes almost 40 offshore sites, their core network, their multi-cloud network with Azure and AWS, aswell as their 200+ work from home users. The energy firm has currently purchased almost 1000 licenses to offer Versa
Secure SD-WAN, routing, next generation firewall, and private access to their remote workforce. Versa is protecting
almost 400 sites and at 100% deployment, Versa will be supporting around 900 nodes.

Benefits of Implementing Versa
Versa was already the best-in-class for Secure SD-WAN but with added value of Versa’s security components such as
Versa Secure Access and Versa’s next generation firewall capabilities, the energy firm was able to signification reducecomplexity and costs of cobbling together multiple security products. With Versa SASE, the customer was able to achieve:• Cost reduction through licensing and product consolidation• Control and visibility over their branch sites through robust multi-tenancy and analytics• Enhanced security with embedded next generation firewall and encrypted private access• Simplification of their networking architecture for ease of IT administration• Strategic position to take on more transformation projects and initiatives
Throughout the entire process, Versa was able to quickly deliver on all of the different use cases and requirements,
proving to be technically superior to the competition. In addition to Versa’s ability to execute technically, Versa’s
support and service was always available, making the entire POC process painless. The energy firm realized thatVersa was not only a superior technical product but the people behind the product were exceptionally talented andresponsive. The energy firm values Versa as a long-term strategic partner who offers both superior products andpeople. The customer plans to expand their use cases in the future by extending the Versa SASE footprint to every
corner of their global, distributed network.

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