Cisco Webinar: Georgia-Pacific Extends Network to the IoT Edge

IoT can deliver monumental business value – but it also introduces new challenges in complexity, scalability, and security. How do you ensure reliable connectivity at outdoor field sites with huge temperature variations and extreme conditions? How do you manage all of these networking devices in your manufacturing plant and outdoor locations at scale? And how will you protect your connected enterprise after you massively expand the threat surface with the ever-increasing number of end-points?

The key is secure, scalabale and reliable connectivity across the stack with the industry’s first integrated network architecture that extends intent-based networking (IBN) to the IoT edge. In our latest IoT webinar, we shared how IBN simplifies network management with unprecedented visibility and control over the enterprise network from carpeted spaces to rugged outdoor environments.

Joining the webinar was our customer Georgia-Pacific, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of paper products. Tyler George, IT/OT Architect for Georgia-Pacific, highlighted their critical challenges, and how Cisco IoT solutions are enabling the company to streamline operations and realize value sooner.

With over 135 manufacturing sites, Georgia-Pacific had struggled with the complexity and costs of managing the enterprise network in the past. They needed a unified solution for network management that not only met the diverse needs of factory environments, but could easily be controlled by both IT and operations teams.

The company also needed to extend the network to outdoor environments that experience harsh conditions such as high temperatures and humidity. Previously, connecting to those sites located beyond traditional carpeted spaces had been unreliable and unmanaged, with no visibility into performance. They needed a powerful solution for network control in rugged environments, with a compact form factor to easily swap out old equipment in tight spaces.

The company has implemented enterprise-wide security solutions with connectivity for IP video surveillance cameras, employee badge readers, and other IoT devices deployed outside of the office which need additional PoE ports. Cisco IoT gives them modular flexibility to combine wired connectivity with POE+ wireless to more cost-efficiently manage network load across a range of use cases.

View the webinar replay to hear more on the early benefits Georgia-Pacific is seeing from their field trials of our next-generation networking platforms, the Cisco Catalyst IE3x00 industrial switches.

“Today Georgia-Pacific is a market leader in consumer and forest products and our growth is fueled by the efficiencies gained through IoT. Early field trials of the Cisco Catalyst IE3x00 Rugged Series has laid the foundation for future opportunities to expand intent-based networking and with it centralized management and security to the edge of the network. We look forward to continuing to deploy Cisco’s IoT industrial solutions.” – Paul Moore, Senior Director of IT, Georgia-Pacific

Check out the webinar replay to hear more from Georgia-Pacific, as well as Cisco IoT experts, Sanat Kamal Bahl, Director of Product Marketing; and Albert Mitchell, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer. Learn how you can unify security and network management across office and outdoor spaces with Cisco’s new rugged IoT platforms.