MERAKI CASE STUDY | HEALTHCARE
Mosaic streamlines distributed network with
cloud managed VPN and wireless LAN
40 MX series gateways and 300 802.11n wireless APs are easily managed through Meraki’s dashboard
5,000 employees across 40 sites gain access to centralized electronic health records, medication dosage
information, and HR solutions
Site-to-site VPN provides secure distributed networking at a fraction of the cost of MPLS
Centralized visibility and control of branch networks significantly reduce helpdesk calls
Layer 7 traffic shaping limits P2P traffic, prioritizing bandwidth for critical applications
Non-profit organization Mosaic provides services such as job
coaching, case management, life skills building, special education,
and supported living to more than 3,500 people with intellectual
disabilities. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, Mosaic employs
5,000+ people across 38 agencies in 11 states. Most employees
work in regional offices and visit clients in their own homes, group
homes, and apartments.
Mosaic wanted to create a secure, HIPAA-compliant wide area
network (WAN) between the many branches and the headquarters,
enabling executive staff and nurses to easily access the electronic
health records, medication dosage information, time keeping portals,
and human resources solutions that are stored in Omaha.
At the same time, the need for wireless access to support the
extremely mobile staff had become painfully clear: despite the policy
against wireless prescribed from headquarters, numerous agencies
deployed their own off the shelf products and called the Omahabased IT helpline when things went wrong.
“The whole network was a nightmare to manage,” said Daniel McDonald,
Mosaic’s Systems Integration Manager. “We don’t have IT in the field,
but meanwhile we house all our data here at headquarters, so that
was a challenge.” McDonald longed to connect Mosaic’s 40 sites
through a secure site-to-site VPN, deploy centrally-managed wireless
everywhere, and provide mobile tablets to everyone.
MPLS seemed like a possible solution, but it was well outside the
budget for the non-profit organization. Then McDonald learned
about Meraki gateway devices and wireless access points (APs). “I
was floored by how easy it was to take care of everything through
the cloud-based dashboard,” he said. “You don’t have to be a Cisco
certified engineer to operate it. We saw right away that it would be
much easier to deploy Meraki hardware everywhere and manage it all
from here.”
Mosaic connects 40 sites nationwide with cloud managed VPN.
With a small IT team, Mosaic deployed over 300 Meraki 802.11n
APs and 40 Meraki MX gateways – all connected through site-tosite VPN – in Mosaic’s remote locations nationwide. “The Meraki
solution has provided us with a secure, centrally managed distributed
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MERAKI CASE STUDY | HEALTHCARE
network without the cost of MPLS,” McDonald said. “Our users love
having reliable wireless, and the network is easy for us to manage. The
upgrade has been really exciting for us.”
To add a branch into Mosaic’s new network architecture, all McDonald
has to do is log in to the web-based Meraki dashboard, add an MX
gateway into the organization, and enable the VPN with a single
mouse click. MX gateways automatically discover each other through
Meraki’s cloud, so there is no need to manually create routes between
each. The network automatically monitors VPN connectivity and
adjusts to any real-time changes. The complexity of traditional siteto-site VPN settings – such as configuring IPsec authentication,
security association parameters, and key exchanges – are completely
automated by Meraki’s cloud.
“The Meraki solution has provided
us with a secure, centrally managed
distributed network without the cost
of MPLS. The upgrade has been really
exciting for us.”
- Daniel McDonald,
Systems Integration Manager, Mosaic
Mosaic’s employees now enjoy always-on mobile connectivity. They
authenticate to the network through 802.1x/RADIUS and then can
securely access electronic medical records from headquarters,
maintaining HIPAA compliance. Meanwhile, Mosaic’s IT staff can
see the status of every access point through the Meraki dashboard.
Client fingerprinting provides them with insight into the types of mobile
devices on the Mosaic network, and Layer-7 Application Traffic Shaping
enables them to limit P2P traffic and prioritize bandwidth by application.
McDonald said Mosaic’s new VPN connectivity has had a significant
impact on helpdesk support, as the team can now proactively
monitor and troubleshoot all the remote sites, as well as easily ssh
into computers in the field. Further, the site-to-site VPN enabled print
servers which dramatically improved the speed and quality when
printing documents hosted on Mosaic’s private cloud at headquarters.
“75% of our troubleshooting issues were with printing,” McDonald said. “Meraki is incredibly responsive and is always adding useful new
“Meraki takes the confusion out of everything.”
features to the dashboard,” McDonald said. He is also pleased with
how firmware updates push to his Meraki devices automatically. “I
With the nationwide deployment of Meraki 802.11n wireless APs, cross firmware updates off my to-do list without even thinking about it.”
| 415.632.5800
| www.meraki.com
Meraki, Inc.Inc.
| 99| Rhode
Island St. 2 nd
Francisco, CA
5800 | www.meraki.com
Meraki,
660 Alabama
St.,Floor,
SanSan
Francisco,
CA94103
94110| 415.632.