Newell Brands Adopts Infoblox for Top-Tier Network Services to Protect Best-in-Class Brands
“We like the way we can set custom grids and maintenance anywhere in the world. We can change domain names and give authorization and granular access control to the grid. And, Infoblox appliances provide seamless changes and require little to no training of our IT staff. We can sit down for 10-15 minutes and they are good to go.”
— Dick Emford, Manager of Network Services, Newell Brands
THE CUSTOMER – NEWELL BRANDS
Newell Brands an S&P 500 company, is a global marketer of consumer and commercial products with sales of approximately $6 billion.
At Newell Brands, their vision is to be a global company of Brands That Matter™ and great people, known for best-in-class results. Newell Brands is transforming into a global, consumer-centric company by investing in research that helps better understand consumers and their needs. In turn, these insights are helping to develop breakthrough product innovations that deliver meaningful solutions.
Newell Brands has a strong portfolio of brands, including Rubbermaid Sharpie, Graco, Calphalon, Irwin, Lenox, Levolor, Paper Mate, Dymo, Waterman, Parker, Goody, Technical Concepts, and Aprica. It is organized into three groups: Home & Family, Office Products, and Tools, Hardware & Commercial Products. In the U.S., more than 90% of households use at least one Newell Brands product.
Customer: Newell Brands
Industry: Manufacturing
Location: Freeport, Illinois
Objectives: Replace aging CNR infrastructure that’s prone to failure, Adopt appliance-based system for increased security and lower cost of ownership
Results: Nonstop internal DNS and DHCP services, Seamless integration with IP address management capabilities, Consistent, reliable uptime, Greater security, Significant administrative advantages and cost savings
Products: NIOS DDI
THE CHALLENGE
Network Applications that Don’t Meet Company Standards
Newell Brands is constantly innovating and improving product offerings to meet the needs of consumers. From office products, such as Sharpie and Paper Mate, to juvenile products with Graco and consumer cookware with Calphalon, Newell Brands touches the lives of millions of consumers everyday where they live, work, and play. The company’s well-recognized brands are sold around the globe.
Given the high standards Newell Brands upholds for its products, they expect the same from the key applications and systems helping to keep the business operating effectively 24×7.
Unfortunately, Newell Brands’s previous domain name resolution (DNS), IP address assignment (DHCP), and IP address management (IPAM) systems—all essential to the daily operation and availability of the company’s applications—were prone to failures and were not meeting those standards.
For years, Newell Brands used Cisco Network Registrar (CNR). The product did an “average” job; however, average was not sufficient given Newell Brands’s worldwide growth plans and disaster recovery, scalability, and management requirements. Newell Brands needed to replace its aging CNR infrastructure and wanted an appliance-based DNS/DHCP system for increased security and reduced total cost of ownership.
THE RESULT
Unexpected Real-Time Performance Reports
After upgrading core network services to better meet business needs with NIOS DDI, the Newell Brands IT department realized improved uptime, immediate administrative advantages, and reduced maintenance costs. “We like the way we can set custom grids and maintenance anywhere in the world,” says Dick Emford, Manager of Network Services, Newell Brands. “We can change domain names and give authorization and granular access control to the grid. And, Infoblox appliances provide seamless changes and require little to no training of our IT staff. We can sit down for 10 – 15 minutes and they are good to go.”
Additionally, one of the unexpected results was improved (or added) ability to view real time and historical log reports. Using Infoblox, system and protocol activity reports provide real-time and historical DNS and DHCP performance graphs and DNS query log reports. The Admin and Object Audit Log reporting tool turns log data into useful information by producing user-configurable reports. The user audit report allows Newell Brands administrators to quickly and easily generate detailed usage and audit reports.
“With Infoblox we get system and protocol activity reports providing real-time and historical DNS and DHCP performance graphs and DNS query logs,” says Dick Emford. “We are able to generate detailed usage and audit reports based on user, IP, MAC, date, or on any combination. I can see what is granted and what is expired, and that is a beautiful thing.”