Maplewave restores IT productivity with NaaS, driving business competitiveness

The Challenge

Maplewave is the premier SaaS provider of retail optimization services for the Telecom industry. By moving its large server presence to the cloud, Maplewave reclaimed hundreds of hours in IT productivity. So, when the time came for a network revamp, the IT team jumped at the chance to reap similar gains by implementing a Network as a Service (NaaS) solution.

• Mundane network tasks throttled IT innovation
• Hours spent troubleshooting network issues
• Improper wireless network for workplace mobility

The Solution

Maplewave scrapped its multi-vendor network in favor of Nile, which now supports 150 Halifax HQ users. The Nile Access Service continuously delivers always-on, high-definition connectivity and takes care of any software updates and security patches.

• Quick and easy install spearheaded by Nile
• Secure wireless network backed by Nile performance-based guarantees
• New IT focus: driving DevOps, moving to the cloud

The Results

Thanks to Nile, Maplewave now enjoys seamless and secure company-wide collaboration, and its network is easier to manage than ever, spurring IT innovation.

• Fully-redundant wireless network drives employee collaboration
• Troubleshooting time slashed, mundane management duties gone, freeing up IT time for strategic initiatives
• Guaranteed availability, capacity and coverage allows employees to roam, work from anywhere with confidence
• Campus zero trust isolation protects company from social engineering attacks

A whole new way of networking

At Maplewave, innovation looks like every employee supports the company’s core competency: software development. For IT leadership, that means freeing up IT staff time to help push DevOps to the next level.

“After seeing the benefits of the cloud, moving the network to Nile was a no brainer,” explains Maplewave Technical Support Analyst, Robert Loveless. “The NaaS model takes the day-to-day network support off our plate, allowing our IT team to drive value, ultimately becoming more essential to the business.”

The Nile experience started with an install that was so quick and easy, Loveless characterized it as exhilarating. “At one point, we just walked up to the AP, scanned the QR, clicked activate and watched the AP light turn green. It doesn’t get any easier than that.”

The Maplewave IT team no longer spends hours trying to pinpoint and resolve network issues.

“Nile truly is ‘network as a service’,” says Loveless. “If there is a network issue, Nile takes care of it.”

“We want the IT team to be DevOps oriented, and Nile enables that,” says Loveless. “Taking them off of all the mundane network tasks gives them time to be creative and think outside the box.”

Loveless is currently considering the addition of Nile guests services to his network to alleviate even more of the burden on IT.

The way we work has changed 

Collaboration goes hand-in-hand with innovation, which is why Maplewave employees aren’t tethered to specific desks. They connect wirelessly to the network, allowing them the flexibility to work with their colleagues anywhere in the office. But it wasn’t always this way.

Prior to Nile, Maplewave’s network wasn’t set up for true workplace mobility, it was missing the redundancy required for high-availability. If an AP went out, wi-fi in an entire section of the office was down. The switch to Nile’s fully-redundant, always-on wireless network jump started collaboration for Maplewave.

“Our employees come into the office and just plunk themselves down anywhere,” says Loveless. “They can’t waste time dealing with network connection issues, the wi-fi has to work everywhere, every time.”

The Nile network has been so reliable that Loveless doesn’t use the Nile Customer Portal for tracking network performance.

“I’ve literally never clicked on the SLA tile. Why would I? The network just works,” he explains.

Zero trust right out of the box

The Nile Customer Portal is, however, being leveraged very frequently for troubleshooting devices outside of the Nile network and for security.

“Before Nile, we didn’t know who was connecting to the network,” Loveless says. “It’s been a huge security boost to control access by having that information in real time.”

Nile connects users to the network based on their identity, providing a level of security that follows the user across the network versus traditional VLAN geographic limitations. So, while workplace mobility is celebrated at Maplewave, Nile’s architecture protects against social engineering attacks with 802.1X and MAB authentication.

“Nile … takes the day-to-day network support off of our plate, allowing our IT team to become more essential to the business by driving value.”

– Robert Loveless, Technical Support Analyst, Maplewave

“Because we have Nile, I don’t have to worry about network performance”

– Brian LeBlanc, Director of ITS, Maplewave