Boise Cascade Migrates to the Cloud with Next-Level Networking in NIOS DDI
“Increased network reliability and resiliency were our initial goals with the DDI upgrade... It was essential that we demonstrate to our customers—our co-workers—that we were making progress toward improved performance and better user experiences in the context of the cloud migration. The Infoblox solution enabled us to quickly do just that by significantly improving networking performance in remote and branch locations.”
— Kevin Belnap, Infrastructure Engineer, Boise Cascade
THE CUSTOMER: BOISE CASCADE
Boise Cascade is a Fortune 1000 company and a global leader in building products.
Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, Boise Cascade is one of the largest producers of engineered wood products and plywood in North America. The company’s Building Materials Distribution division is the only nationwide, full-line, wholesale distributor of building products for residential construction, operating 38 branches across the United States and reaching $4+ billion in division sales in 2019. Boise Cascade’s Wood Products Manufacturing division is the second largest producer of environmentally friendly engineered wood products (EWP) and plywood in North America, operating 15 mills with $1.28 billion in sales in 2019.
Infrastructure Engineer Kevin Belnap and the IT team at Boise Cascade support
6,200 employees working from the company’s several dozen branch locations
dispersed throughout North America.
Customer: Boise Cascade
Industry: Construction Materials, Forest Products Manufacturing
Location: Boise, Idaho
Objectives: Replace Nokia VitalQIP with enterprise-grade DDI solution, Accelerate digital transformation and cloud migration strategy, Enhance network reliability and performance, Improve online and customer experience for remote users and branch locations
Results: Modernized network architecture, Well positioned to quickly build a foundation for accelerating digital transformation and cloud migration, Improved reliability and performance of core networking operations, Improved the customer experience for remote users and branch locations
Products: NIOS DDI
THE CHALLENGE
Replacing Legacy Point Products with a Future-Proof DDI Solution
Beginning in 2018, Belnap and the Boise Cascade team began planning and executing its corporate-wide initiative to migrate to a cloud network architecture. The customer’s digital transformation strategy would entail the migration of much of the company’s enterprise computing resources, processing and data storage to an AWS public cloud environment. Moving to the cloud promised to substantially reduce the costs associated with operating a conventional data center at the company’s Boise headquarters and would position the company to more efficiently scale and optimize business processes in the years ahead.
A key part of the solution was to implement NIOS DDI as a foundation. Boise Cascade was looking for a reliable system with expanded functionality, integrated DDI, discovery, and support for cloud.
Belnap states, “We see great value in the innovations that are driving business agility and efficiency today, namely cloud, automation, virtualization, and other elements of digital transformation. Working with Infoblox has presented a golden opportunity to replace our legacy point products with a DDI solution that helps our team and our company keep pace with and even stay ahead of the times.”
THE SOLUTION
A DDI System Seamlessly Integrated with Cloud Platforms
Infoblox’s Grid technology and NIOS DDI have enabled Boise Cascade to centrally manage advanced DDI services onsite from headquarters while seamlessly integrating with its expanding cloud and virtualization platforms. Infoblox Grid technology automates the error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks associated with deploying and managing DNS, DHCP, and IPAM. By powering Infoblox core network services in this way, NIOS, ensures non-stop operation of network infrastructure and provides a solid foundation for next-level networking.
Belnap explains, “Increased network reliability and resiliency were our initial goals with the DDI upgrade. Having experienced a network outage earlier in the digital transformation process, it was essential that we demonstrate to our customers—our co-workers—that we were making progress toward improved performance and better user experiences in the context of the cloud migration. The Infoblox solution enabled us to quickly do just that by significantly improving networking performance in remote and branch locations. Ultimately, Infoblox enables us to increase our SLA (service level agreement) that forms the basis of our relationship with our internal customers and users and puts us in a strong position to capitalize on our cloud migration.”
THE RESULTS
A Superior Customer Experience
Given that the process of replacing the existing VitalQIP installment was a very large undertaking, Boise Cascade conducted thorough research and carefully considered all options before choosing Infoblox. The IT team wanted to ensure that Infoblox would deliver services effectively while migrating services from the outsourced vendor to a new infrastructure. After weighing other options in the DDI space, such as BlueCat Networks, Belnap and team determined that Infoblox was positioned to provide the best customer experience and most seamless migration process.
A major factor Boise Cascade’s decision to rely on Infoblox to modernize its network architecture was the value and consistent support and reliability provided by the Infoblox Professional Services team. It was clear that the Infoblox team brought with it many years of expertise in transitioning enterprises worldwide from VitalQIP to Infoblox’s future-ready solution.
“Infoblox’s ability to provide the professional services and resources to help us manage the transition off VitalQIP was a big differentiator for us,” said Belnap. “The domain expertise—call it tribal knowledge—that the Infoblox team brings to bear makes the vendor a highly effective partner in transitioning to up-to-date networking infrastructure. The customer experience was smooth and ultimately added value to the implementation.”
NEXT STEPS
Enhancing Cybersecurity Posture
Boise Cascade successfully completed Infoblox’s education and training course on expertly managing its Infoblox implementation in early 2020. As a result, Belnap and his team are well positioned to optimize DDI operations and keep the migration to its AWS cloud infrastructure on track. While the initial scope of the DDI upgrade was focused tightly on core networking operations, the Boise Cascade team expects to explore options for additional DNS security measures in the near future.