Delivering Worry-Free Network as-a-Service: A Cisco Partner Story – Cisco Blogs

Co-Authored by Alexandra Zagury

Vice President, Partner Managed Services and aaS Sales,
Global Partner Organization

Braathe Gruppen—Cisco Norway 2020 Cloud Partner of the Year—had very modest beginnings. Recognizing in 1989 that companies needed help making their computer systems work as smoothly as possible, Braathe converted an existing agricultural farm building into a high-tech data center server farm. Today, Braathe is a leading-edge engineering-led managed service provider in the Nordic region that offers worry-free IT solutions.

What Braathe understood back in 1989 holds even truer today: Organizations want to focus their limited resources on core competencies, whether in construction, healthcare, or accounting. Increasingly, this means that they want to outsource their IT infrastructure to experts whose core expertise is in deploying and managing it.

Simply put, businesses want the infrastructure they rely on—such as their local network—to just work.

The need for network delivered as a service that just works

But businesses need even more than this. CFOs want predictable costs to simplify budgeting, while paying only for the infrastructure used. Management wants to scale network resources up and down to adapt to the fluid demands of the business. Everyone wants an “easy” button they can press so that the next day the network is up and running or scaled up or down. Of course, the network must also be secure and continuously delivering the availability and latency needed for the applications required to run the business to deliver optimal user experiences.

In other words, companies would do well not to run their own networks, but rather move to a modern network as a service, delivered by a trusted managed service provider. This is where Braathe Gruppen—partnered with Cisco and utilizing Cisco Meraki—comes in.

Braathe and network as-a-service

Braathe’s network as-a-service offer provides a fully managed network that includes wireless access points, switches, and firewalls. To get started, customers order what they want, and access points and switches arrive the next day. Then, they simply unbox the devices, plug them in, and forget about it. Braathe’s engineering specialists takes care of the rest. There is no contract, and customers pay for what they will need on a monthly basis.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a general contractor working at a building site for 12 months. With Braathe, you order the wireless network at the beginning of the project, paying a predictable, fixed monthly operational expense. When the project is done, you simply send the network equipment back to Braathe. No more large, upfront capital expenses that must be fully charged against the first project, followed by the headache of allocating and managing the equipment against subsequent projects. 

Standardizing on Cisco Meraki

To deliver network as-a-service with fixed pricing, it’s critical for Braathe to deploy networking technology that is highly reliable and easily scalable and that can be remotely managed and optimized according to an organization’s evolving needs. This is why Braathe has standardized on Cisco Meraki network products.

Standardization is key because it enables—among other things—Braathe to laser-focus train its engineering and customer care specialists. In fact, Braathe leverages Cisco certifications to help ensure that its staff is well-versed in Cisco technology.

In addition, the Cisco Meraki cloud management platform enables Braathe to manage its customers’ networks remotely through a single pane of glass. Among many other benefits, this capability helps Braathe configure its customers’ networks in minutes.

Meanwhile, best-in-class security from Meraki is automatically updated, giving Braathe and its customers peace of mind in knowing their networks include a powerful defense against cybercriminals.

A worry-free network

Braathe’s highly trained specialists, as-a-service business model, and Cisco Meraki provide the ingredients for a worry-free network for companies of all sizes. For CFOs, this means predictable, operational costs—paying only for networking resources used, without needing to budget for capital expenses to meet potential future growth. For LOBs, it means easily scaling resources up or down to more precisely meet the needs of the business. And for everyone, it means a secure and optimal experience running applications over the network.

As an example, law firm Svensson Nøkleby wanted to focus its resources on legally representing clients and not on being networking experts. That said, the firm has lawyers working at all hours of the day, so the network must function continuously. In addition, security is of utmost importance, especially given the types of cases it handles. With Braathe’s network as-a-service, Svensson Nøkleby lawyers can focus on being the best lawyers they can be and know that Braathe is taking care of their networking needs.

Speaking directly from the liver

Norwegians have a well-known saying: “snakke rett fra leveren.” In English, this literally translates as “to speak directly from the liver.” The actual meaning is to speak plainly and truthfully without any sugar-coating. Many will say if you survey a Norwegian and they like a service, they’ll rate it as 3 out of 5, because they don’t sugar-coat their answers. When more than 2000 customers were asked to rate Braathe’s service, they gave it a score of 4.5 out of 5, which is considered outstanding from a Norwegian audience.

Braathe has understood for over three decades that customers what to focus on what they do best, which for the most part doesn’t include being experts in deploying and managing wireless and WAN networks. For this, many customers have learned that Braathe’s team of engineers in fact are specialists in delivering a worry-free network as-a-service that complements its full suite of worry-free IT services.

And not only is Braathe’s team knowledgeable about IT, but sustainability is also a priority for the company: When a piece of equipment is no longer needed by one customer it is reallocated to another. Then when the device is at end of life, Braathe properly disposes of the product.

So, whether you need help with your IT, or perhaps want to learn some of Braathe’s best practices on how to be better stewards of our planet’s limited resources, give them a call and be assured they will “snakke rett fra leveren.”

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