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In the first post of this series on M&A IT integration, we covered the challenges of employee onboarding and productivity, a foundational hurdle to overcome early in the integration process. With workers informed and connected to the apps they need to work, the next logical phase of M&A IT integration is getting data centers, office sites, individual devices, and cloud resources connected to the same software-defined network as the parent company.
The driver of this phase is the operational overhead of maintaining two separate networks with their own access policies, security, and cost structure. For many organizations, internal networks are stretched across multiple private clouds, public clouds, office locations, and distributed workers. Streamlining all this is a major stride towards simplification and faster time to value, realizing cost efficiencies and reduced risk in the process.
Our portfolio of VMware Cross-Cloud services is designed for this heterogeneity, providing layers of standardization across networks, clouds, app development, security, and end-user access. For this phase of M&A IT integration, we’ll dive into two of our Network Cross-Cloud services, VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and VMware SD-WAN.
So how can these Cross-Cloud services unify networks in an M&A event? IT teams that implement software-defined networks with SD-WAN have an efficient process to add new sites and employee endpoints to their network, with security and access policies applied to the new organization.
Let’s assume as the parent company, you’ve implemented VMware SD-WAN and are connected to VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Points of Presence (PoPs) around the world. Now, to integrate your acquired company’s network, your process is a replication of your already streamlined architecture.
First, you’ll establish new connection points at your acquired company’s physical sites, and on employee devices. For office locations, you can deploy either physical or virtual SD-WAN edge devices. With zero-touch provisioning, you can bring the acquired company’s sites online within minutes without the need for technical resources on-site. For employee devices, you’ll deploy the VMware SD-WAN client. These edge and client connection points route their traffic to VMware SD-WAN Gateways hosted in SASE PoPs around the world, which apply all of your access, security, and performance management policies. Your new company sites and devices are now part of your software-defined network, with this simple extension of your existing architecture.
The new company’s offices and distributed employees get reliable access to your network resources, optimized connectivity and performance, and security that’s consistent with the rest of your network.
Catch up on the 5 Phases of Highly Efficient M&A IT Integration by reading the full series:
- Day 0 Employee Productivity
- Multi-Cloud Network Unification
- Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Consolidation
- Multi-Cloud Security and Governance
- Developer Access with Enterprise Guardrails
Want the full story in one place? Read our whitepaper “The Executive Guide to Efficient M&A IT Integration” here!
Our goal is to give you the strategic guidance you need to achieve faster time to value in your M&A integration efforts. Through these phases of integration, you can deliver a more seamless process for your organization, while developing a durable framework for future M&A events that follow the same playbook.
