Analytics Industry - UC Configuration Case Study

About the company

The institution was voted the most innovative insight firm in North America by the Greenbook Research Industry Trends report and is considered one of the largest market research consultancies in the world. They perform market research to both promote business analytics and provide insights on some of the largest business challenges. Having over 200 employees, they provide consulting services to clients worldwide. They have provided data analytics solutions in over 80 countries for over 40 years. They provide solutions on brand strategy, such as brand positioning, brand tracking, and brand extension; foundational research, such as the path to purchase and behavioral research; innovation and product development, such as predictive modeling and concept testing; customer experience, such as customer loyalty and product experience design; and market segmentation, such as stakeholder engagement and global segmentation. They serve industries, such as business services, consumer goods, education, health, technology, and financial services.

CHALLENGES

Their main pain point involved unified communications (UC) needs in their business environment. However, the inability of the UC servers’ IP addresses to communicate with each other served as a hindrance. This is because company’s access control lists (ACLs) were not properly configured on the adaptive security appliance (ASA) software. An ACL is an ordered set of rules that filters signals; where each rule specifies a condition set that packet(s) must satisfy to match the rule in order to be transmitted successfully.

A switch determines that an ACL applies to a packet; it also tests the packet against the conditions of all rules. It essentially processes packets that are permitted and drops packets that are denied; if an ACL is not properly configured, in the case of this organization’s UC servers, then the signals may be deemed as unwanted traffic. ACLs are built as a first line of defense, considered to be “on the edge” of an ASA network security appliance and firewall. This customer segmented each of their sites by using ACLs on their routers and switches. While the routing is in place, the ACLs are preventing the new UC servers from communicating with each other. In order to have a fully functioning UC system, this organization would need to show where the ACLs are and how they are currently configured; then a Cisco UC engineer may then configure the ACLs properly to allow the IPs of the UC servers to communicate with each other.

Assessment and solution

With this IT challenge, this institution reached out to PM2NET in order to troubleshoot their current ACL and ASA configuration. PM2NET sent one of their Cisco UC specialists to assist in the effort, investigating the ACLs that the customer previously set up on their routers and switches. The Cisco UC engineer would then configure the ACLs properly to allow communication between the UC servers.

advantages

As a business analytics company, the importance of UC for internal communications could not be understated. Their IT staff needed to solve the issue quickly to allow day-to-day business functions. PM2NET was able to provide the solution in a quick and cost-effective manner. With the help of PM2NET’s Cisco UC capabilities, this organization benefited from a properly configured ACL on its ASA. PM2NET provided this service, along with troubleshooting and testing of the UC servers. PM2NET also provided education to the IT staff on how the ACLs were set up. With ACLs now properly configured on their ASA, the customer’s UC servers could now properly communicate with each other