Kinross gains reliable connectivity to keep global offices and remote mining sites operating 24/7/365 with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

With global mining operations running 24/7/365, Kinross must assure reliable access to business-critical applications and data in the company’s Toronto data centers. However, some sites are so remote that satellite is the only way to connect.

Amir Rahimi, senior network engineer for Kinross, is focused on keeping all of the company’s locations connected and operating without disruption. “Before EdgeConnect, we had to link many different technologies and deal with multiple vendors around the world. Our WAN became extremely complex and it was very time-consuming to manage and troubleshoot issues.”

Gaining Control Over Network Complexity

When Rahimi stepped into his current role at Kinross, the company’s WAN had become a mix of different tunnel protocols across MPLS, VPLS, VPN and satellite technologies, with manually configured redundancy and a variety of QoS policies. “Network complexity became difficult to manage,” Rahimi says. “We needed a simpler network solution that we could operate more efficiently.”

Rahimi总结为1）故障排除，故障转移，优化和优先级的操作困难；2）整合多个供应商和底层技术；3）由于工程时间过多而导致的运营费用较高，因此在追踪和解决连通性问题上花费了时间。

Rahimi指出：“我们认为SD-WAN是使管理和优化网络更加容易的一种方式。”在评估了多个供应商解决方案之后，Kinross工程团队最终选择了Aruba EdgeConnectSD-WAN edge platform with optionalAruba BoostWAN optimization.

Streamlines Connectivity for Global Mining Sites

Today, EdgeConnect is deployed in dual redundant configurations for high availability at all 23-plus Kinross locations across the Americas, West Africa and Russia. As a result, the company has been able to retire legacy routers and decommission MPLS and VPLS circuits in favor of dual redundant broadband or dedicated internet access (DIA), reducing costs substantially.

Now, taking advantage of the routing unified on the EdgeConnect platform, along with business intent overlays to prioritize application traffic based on business need, most locations seamlessly break out locally to the internet or connect back to the Kinross data centers in Toronto to access applications. The Russia sites link back to a regional office via satellite and connect to the SD-WAN from there.

Alex Kulinchenko, manager of global IT infrastructure for Kinross Gold Corporation, remarks, “By adopting EdgeConnect with Boost, we were able to greatly simplify our edge connectivity, replacing multiple technologies with a single appliance that unifies routing and WAN optimization. Even at our mine site in a remote part of Russia with a satellite link as the only form of communication, Aruba delivered a successful solution for us.”

WAN加速度优化应用程序

Using theAruba Orchestratorcentralized management console, Rahimi created several business intent overlays. For example, the “real time” overlay includes applications such as VoIP and Microsoft Teams. The “cloud” overlay incorporates on-premises applications, such as the company’s ERP system, as well as SaaS applications like Microsoft Office 365.

Rahimi also created a “critical” overlay for Citrix traffic used at all Kinross global locations as well as specialized applications used for file transfer. Boost WAN optimization is applied to all applications in the critical overlay, which Rahimi says accelerates application performance dramatically. “Boost is like a magic pill.”

Rahimi explains that the most common complaint from staff was slow file uploads. In some cases, very large files took days to upload. “As soon as we move an application into the critical overlay where it gets the advantage of Boost, all complaints stop. Everything starts working smoothly and our internal client is happy.”

Supports 24/7/365 business with close to 100% WAN uptime

Network reliability and uptime have also improved for Kinross, thanks to sub-millisecond failover between underlay circuits enabled by EdgeConnect. This greatly improves resiliency—if one connection goes down, application traffic continues to flow uninterrupted on another available circuit.

Rahimi报道：“由于与WAN相关的问题，我们现在已经能够大大减少停机时间。”“能够从一个电路到另一循环的故障转移的能力是很棒的。它有助于我们支持24/7/365的业务需求。”

Makes Network Engineering Life Much Easier

Rahimi及其团队的重大胜利是通过Aruba编排的集中管理控制台简化网络管理，并具有更大的可见性和控制权。

Kulinchenko notes, “We have only one person, Amir, who manages our entire global network. This is possible because we have such confidence in the reliability of our Aruba SD-WAN combined with the ease of administration through the centralized Orchestrator management console.”

全球的网络可见度提高

拉希米（Rahimi）特别赞赏编目仪表板如何提供应用程序流量的高级视图，也可以将其深入到单个应用程序流的详细信息中。

拉希米说：“我第一次看到流程我喜欢它。”“这是这个美丽的Gui向我展示了流量来自哪里，应用了什么路线图，QoS政策以及它的发展方向。这对于解决应用程序问题进行故障排除是一个很好的帮助。很容易过滤流量并查明问题的来源。与过去只有几天或几周的时间，它只是通过编排的几秒钟。”

Kinross also provides remote mining sites with “view-only” access to the Orchestrator console affording them extra visibility into how traffic is flowing without requiring additional reporting from Rahimi.

Simplified day-to-day WAN operations

Day-to-day management and updates are easier, too. In the past, the engineering team had to push out policies to individual devices. Rahimi says, “It was not always reliable. Now with Orchestrator, I can create one policy and send it to 54 EdgeConnect appliances across the world and five minutes later, once everything synchs up, I know it’s working.”

Rahimi concludes, “I can’t think of anything negative about the Aruba SD-WAN solution. It is very well thought-out and just works. It’s not only a great solution, it’s backed by a support team that understands our challenges and helps us meet our goals.”