Government technology team opens a state-of-the-art facility

The Administrative District of the Government of Catalonia is dedicated to driving relentless innovation. Serving 200,000, this public organization is responsible for leading and managing all of Catalonia's computing systems and telecommunication services. Providing a wide variety of services to more than seven million citizens across the region, the Government of Catalonia relies on its network infrastructure to support citizen services like public safety, transportation, commerce, and many other systems.

“Our organization provides technology that the Government requires for its digital transformation,” said Ester Manzano, General Director of Digital Administration, the Government of Catalonia. "It supports projects for a variety of administrative districts and is opening up a workplace for 2600 public employees for different departments."

With a new flagship building under construction and scheduled to open in just weeks, the organization wanted to transform its workplace by bringing three departments together under a single unified network. The organization was seeking to implement a more mobile collaboration environment through a major strategic initiative that would impact the entire network. The new infrastructure would need to keep department traffic separate and secure, while empowering employees to collaborate however, whenever, and wherever they needed.

Moving the workforce steps ahead through a software-defined network

After considering a variety of vendors and solutions, the Administrative District of the Government of Catalonia chose a Cisco Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) solution.

"We needed a solution that was not only innovative, but complete, and fully integrated. Cisco was the best choice to deliver both," said Manzano.

The organization was impressed by Cisco's SD-Access technology and its ability to enable automation, performance assurance, security, and ease of operation.

"With Cisco SD-Access technology, the network adapts to the employee, instead of requiring the employee to adapt to the network," said Manzano. "Its software-defined approach also enables faster implementation."

Working under an extremely aggressive timeline as its new facility neared completion, the Government needed to rapidly validate and deploy its solution, and gain the knowledge needed to use it to its full potential. Through the Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Program, Cisco proposed a Customer Experience approach. An expert team of Cisco Professional Services engineers teamed up with the customer's architects and its technology partner. Together, they tested and validated the SD-Access design in a record time of eight weeks.

Enabling workplace transformation in just weeks

Cisco Customer Experience (CX) worked closely with the Government and its partner to bring the vision to life in just eight weeks. Cisco Professional Services engineers led the deployment of a secure Cisco Software-Defined Access infrastructure, which delivers the performance needed for nonstop collaboration, backed by automation and simplified management.

The technology partner had a design in place, and the CX team provided additional guidelines to enable the organization to use the solution in its full potential. Cisco CX provided guidance to the government and its partner customer and partner were closely guided throughout this journey, accelerating results and guaranteeing the solution was effectively operated.

"Cisco and the government teams worked together from the beginning as one team, innovating and contributing new ideas," said Manzano.

"The new solution lets us concentrate different departments in the same building, enabling us to facilitate the adoption of new ways of working, and enhance mobility, transpersonal connections, and efficient management of common spaces," said Manzano. "Cisco SD-Access lets us evolve the model of provisioning and management of ICT services with the incorporation of automated processes."

The updated infrastructure also enables the organization to better understand user needs, and deliver the level of performance and security they need for specific applications and services.

"The solution lets us extend network intelligence to the employee and device level, so we can profile people and adjust performance to meet their needs," said Manzano. "If an employee moves to another building, they can bring the same profile with them wherever they go."

Now the Government of Catalonia has state-of-the-art facility, and a new way of networking that it can extend to more sites for years to come. The Cisco SD-Access architecture was pre-validated, paving the way for additional buildings to be considered in a new paradigm.

"This software-based solution opens up new possibilities," said Manzano. "The network knows how people work, and this enables us to make service more efficient. In addition, this solution can be applied to other buildings in the Catalonian government in the future."

For more information

To find out more about Cisco Customer Experience and how we can accelerate your success, check out our e-book, Accelerate Your Journey to Intent-Based Networking With Cisco Customer Experience.