Stolt-Nielsen Improves Efficiency, Securityand User Experience with Zscaler and VMware

Stolt-Nielsen operates more than 50 locations worldwide, and like most organizations moving applications to the cloud, the company found it difficult to maintain a quality user experience for many of its offices and, in particular, for its growing number of remote users.

The company was operating a traditional WAN with MPLS connections, which it found to be inefficient and inconsistent with the company’s overall cloud strategy. Its MPLS contracts were expensive, had long-term commitments, and made new locations cumbersome to deploy.

The company’s on-premises gateway security solution lacked the flexibility to handle cloud and SaaS traffic. Its security monitoring functionality was limited, and it provided no protection for local breakouts, remote employees, or road warriors. In addition to security limitations, Stolt-Nielsen funneled traffic to a data center in Europe for egress to the internet, causing latency issues for locations in other parts of the world. The user experience was poor, and frustration was growing among employees in many locations across the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.

“Basically, we were looking for flexibility,” said Erik Beekhuizen, Senior Program Manager at Stolt-Nielsen. “We were looking for a new technology to support the strong cloud strategy and vision we have within our company. We also needed to support new applications that we use within our organization, like Microsoft 365, Azure, and other cloud-based technologies.”

Stolt-Nielsen decided to deploy VMware SD-WAN to address the need to route branch traffic more efficiently from its locations worldwide, including allowing users to go direct-to-cloud for the best experience. To secure the traffic in these locations, as well as for remote users, the company deployed Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA).

“The integration between VMware SD-WAN and Zscaler was very important for our selection,” Beekhuizen said. “We looked at both worlds—the SD-WAN world and the security world—and determined these two solutions worked really well together to give us full support and benefit our users.”

As global business developed, along with technology, more employees were working remotely or traveling for business. Stolt-Nielsen was struggling to maintain a quality user experience for its remote users and in its many offices around the globe.

To address traffic backhauling and latency issues, Zscaler and VMware SD-WAN worked together to optimize and secure local internet breakouts in all branches. Combined, they give users fast and secure access to the internet and cloud applications from every location without the cost and complexity of traditional network and security appliances.

“User experience was very important in our decision to move to a cloud-based solution,” Beekhuizen said. “In the past, we had some problems with performance and high latencies. The combination of VMware SD-WAN and Zscaler technology enabled us to greatly improve user experience and allowed users to be more flexible and work from anywhere and still have the same protection as they would have in the office.”

Once the planning phase was complete, ZIA deployment was completed in a matter of days, which enabled the company’s management to see immediate results.

“Zscaler implementation was very easy,” Beekhuizen said. “After testing and preparation, we deployed all over the world in three days. Looking at the impact on our global user base, they didn’t see anything happen, and all of a sudden, they woke up and they were on Zscaler. So it was a pretty seamless transition to Zscaler.”

Stolt-Nielsen prides itself on being a forward-thinking company, focused on innovation and evolving with the digital age. Making the switch to a cloud-based solution has helped the company further that mission through improved user experience, increased productivity, and secure access for its users around the world, among many other benefits.

“Our organization is focused on the cloud, and ZIA perfectly matches that strategy,” Beekhuizen said. “In the near future, more and more of our applications will move to the cloud, and Zscaler is able to support that migration. And when we look at our SD-WAN integration with VMware SD-WAN, they work seamlessly together. Overall, we’re really happy with it and feel better prepared for the future.”

A positive impact from moving to a cloud-based solution has been felt company-wide.

“The results that we have achieved with Zscaler and VMware SD-WAN so far are really profound, and the management team is very happy with the results,” Beekhuizen said. “Prior to starting, management had made a list of expectations, and the results of the project were even better than the outlined expectations.”