Cato Networks, provider of the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform, has announced Carlsberg Group as its latest enterprise customer. The third largest brewer in the world chose single-vendor SASE to transform its global network and security infrastructure. The Cato deployment will span 200+ locations and 25,000 remote users worldwide. Instead of security appliances, Carlsberg will rely on Cato’s cloud-native security capabilities, including SWG, CASB, DLP, ZTNA, FWaaS, IPS and NGAM.
“We were looking to move from several regional service providers with fragmented technical solutions to one integrated network and security stack with an end-to-end managed service,” said Laurent Gaertner, Global Director of Networks at the Carlsberg Group. “The Cato SASE Cloud and service offering perfectly matched our requirements.”
Legacy network leads to security risks and application disruptions
Established in 1847, the Carlsberg Group is the world’s third largest brewer with US$10.6 billion in revenue spanning over 140 brands. Carlsberg’s network connects 200+ sites across Western & Central Europe and the Asia regions.
The legacy network, built from different regional point solutions and technologies, proved to be challenging to manage for Carlsberg. Opening new locations took too long. VPN performance into China was a problem. And across regions, the Internet-based SD-WAN connecting locations was unsuitable for the company’s VoIP and fully utilising all Microsoft Office 365 features. “We had to retain MPLS just to ensure proper voice quality,” said Gaertner. “And with Microsoft Teams, it doesn’t take a lot of latency for the application collaboration features to become unusable.”
The mix of appliances also created security problems. With multiple firewall appliances, visibility was fragmented. Multiple sets of security policies had to be maintained, which increased complexity and risk. Carlsberg’s Cyber Security Group wanted Zero Trust to be implemented consistently, which also wasn’t possible with the legacy network.
Legacy network problems led to strategic IT challenges
From a strategic perspective, building the legacy network from different providers and technologies prevented IT from delivering consistent service levels worldwide.
Day-to-day management was also compromised. Change requests took too long in part because of the different management interfaces, which complicated problem identification and resolution. Coordinating the different layers of the solution with different service providers became a real challenge.
Carlsberg assesses single-vendor SASE, entrusts Cato with its global infrastructure
To address those problems, the company began looking for a single, global SASE solution. Cato’s rich security capabilities meant Carlberg would have one platform and one security policy worldwide protecting all edges – sites with SD-WAN devices, the cloud with native cloud connectivity and mobile users running the Cato Client. “The Cato security features are a significant step ahead in our Zero Trust implementation strategy and the future innovation will bring us even further,” said Tal Arad, Vice President of Global Security & Technology at Carlsberg.
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