• Business Problem: Rapid international expansion and the geographical dispersion of branches have led to chaos and inefficiencies in the network infrastructure. The existing network based on ad-hoc VPN tunnels (IPSec/SSL) suffered from: 

• • Lack of Standards: Inconsistent IP addressing, lack of uniform architecture hindering management and development. 

• • Management Complexity: Local VPN user bases, difficulty monitoring, implementing policies, and ensuring consistent security. 

• • Operational and Safety Risk: An excess of uncoordinated tunnels increased the risk of failures, configuration errors, and created potential security gaps. Secure and efficient communication between key locations was difficult. 

• Goal: To carry out a comprehensive reorganization and modernization of the network infrastructure to ensure secure, stable, efficient and easy-to-manage communication in a distributed, international organization, preparing it for future technologies (such as SD-WAN). 

• Strategy: Conduct a detailed audit of the existing network and develop a strategic, phased roadmap for modernization, minimizing operational disruptions. 

• Key elements: 

• • Audit & Documentation: Thorough inventory and mapping of all locations, devices, IP addresses and existing VPN connections (>20 subnets) – creating the missing complete picture of the network. 

• • Reorganization plan: Recommendation to standardize IP addressing, simplify network topology (rational reduction of the number of tunnels) and implement logical, layered routing. 

• • Modernization Strategy: Develop a plan for migrating to SD-WAN technology (taking into account the life cycle of current devices) and recommend the implementation of modern, centralized VPN solutions (e.g. Cisco AnyConnect / Palo Alto GlobalProtect) with SAML/MFA authentication (elimination of unsafe, local user bases). 

• Full Visibility and Understanding: For the first time, the customer has complete, reliable documentation and a clear picture of their complex network infrastructure, which is the foundation for further action. 

• Clear Path to Optimize and Reduce Risk: The strategy provided a specific, prioritized action plan to simplify topology, reduce complexity, and significantly increase access management security. 

• Strategic Future Ready (SD-WAN): The customer is now consciously prepared for a smooth transition to modern SD-WAN technology, understanding its cost, operational and performance benefits of cloud applications. 

• Harden Access Security: A centralized authentication (SAML/MFA) implementation strategy once implemented will significantly reduce the risks associated with inconsistent VPN user management and potential misconfigurations. 

• Improved Future Management: The planned changes (standardization, centralization) will simplify future network management, monitoring, and implementation of consistent security policies across the international organization. 

• Reduction in the number of VPN tunnels: An expected reduction of more than 40%, simplifying topology and management. 

• VPN User Management Time: Predicted to reduce the time it takes to add/remove a user by more than 70% due to centralization and SAML. 

• Communication performance: Expected performance improvements (lower latency, higher throughput) for key inter-branch applications of 15-25% after SD-WAN deployment. 

• VPN-related security incidents: Expected to reduce incidents resulting from misconfiguration or weak credentials by more than 80%. 

A prepared strategy allows Ecocem to plan a gradual transition to a modern network architecture without operational disruptions. In the coming years, it is planned to implement SD-WAN, eliminate local points of failure in VPNs, automate access assignment and further unify security policies. The project shows how a strategic approach and in-depth analysis can prepare even a complex, international organization for the successful digital transformation of its key infrastructure.