Argenta takes Teneo SD-WAN to improve global network

Having seen its wide-area network-dependent critical applications underperform due to connectivity dropouts, latency and bandwidth underutilisation, global animal health contract research and manufacturing company Argenta has selected Teneo’s co-managed software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) to improve system performance and interconnectivity across international locations.

Said to be the world’s only combined global contract research organisation (CRO) and contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) specialising in animal health, Argenta was founded in 2006 in New Zealand by Doug Cleverly. The scientist saw a need in the market for an animal health company that could provide high-quality services to customers of all sizes, all over the world, and is still dedicated solely to animal health.

It claims to be unique in the industry by bringing innovation, pharmaceutical sciences, clinical services and manufacturing together to deliver outcomes to customers across multiple areas of expertise. It has operations in New Zealand, the UK and the US, and its 450+ team works with global animal health pharmaceutical companies as well as startups, exporting products and services to more than 50 countries.

The decision to deploy the Teneo SD-WAN came after Argenta had been suffering from connectivity dropouts and latency, which affected critical application performance. Since service deployment, not only has critical application performance improved, but the company has also been able to better utilise existing bandwidth and the cloud, with improved performance and access to applications such as Microsoft Office 365.

Teneo’s co-managed, shared-risk approach to SD-WAN is also designed to help organisations quickly access SD-WAN benefits with minimum risk. It also allows them to select the appropriate level of support they need, as Teneo guides businesses through SD-WAN deployment, filling people, skills and knowledge gaps.

Since adopting Teneo’s co-managed SD-WAN service, Argenta’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system performance has improved by 80%. This has been achieved without the need to change the hosting location or add additional bandwidth capacity. End-to-end network visibility has also improved with simplified dashboards, enabling Argenta to identify bandwidth-heavy applications, discover dependencies and better interpret traffic analysis. This is said to have proved valuable in supporting structural decisions based on clear justification.

In selecting a services partner, Argenta regarded it as crucial to have instant access to a bank of SD-WAN knowledge and expertise its internal team could learn from. In partnering with Teneo, it has also gained practical support through SD-WAN deployment and ongoing management to help share the risk and workload.

“We identified that our team’s main requirement was for assistance with the implementation of an SD-WAN solution and support around general knowledge,” said Argenta UK and US IT operations manager Michael Meredith. “We selected Teneo’s co-managed SD-WAN service to enable us to not only learn the solution ourselves, but also to obtain the support we needed to ensure the solution operated consistently. Teneo’s co-managed SD-WAN service has beaten all expectations, which doesn’t happen often. That’s the biggest compliment I can give.”