The Challenge

Since 1937, Makino has been a global leader in metal-cutting and manufacturing with locations in Europe, North America, Japan, and other regions in Asia. As part of their digital transformation, the company has been building a global network to meet their business expansion requirements and expedite data exchange between distributed R&D departments and tech centers.

Makino synchronizes massive amounts of data for machine specs and schematics from their headquarters in Tokyo to their tech center in Mason, Ohio. File synchronization would take roughly six to seven hours daily and had to be done overnight to minimize adverse effects on performance.

There were occasions where the process would not be completed by the time U.S. employees started their work day, creating a drain on operational efficiency. In addition, Makino had recently acquired several other companies and knew that legacy network solutions such as MPLS and WAN Optimization hardware would not be able to keep pace with the number of sites they needed to onboard quickly.

Aryaka’s SD-WAN is a global fast lane for all our applications. We now deliver data and applications to every end user as if it lived in the local datacenter.

Glenn Hensley, IT Infrastructure Manager at Makino

The Solution

WAN Optimization hardware had been implemented in the past to improve data and application delivery, but to upgrade at every existing site would have been cost prohibitive. Makino also considered deploying Internet-based SD-WAN, however that wouldn’t have solved the latency issues between the sites in Asia and the United States. It also wouldn’t have provided the stable connection that Makino needed for data synchronization.

Instead, Makino went with Aryaka’s SmartConnect SD-WAN as a Service to meet all their requirements. After deploying the solution, Makino noticed a dramatic improvement in performance and data transfer times immediately. The file synchronization that took six to seven hours, now took only 22 minutes which allowed them to become more responsive. This also opened up new possibilities for their business, giving them a massive competitive advantage in their industry. As additional sites were needed, setup took between 2-3 days compared to the weeks or months it would take for an MPLS deployment, allowing Makino to ramp up their business rather than being held up waiting to bring sites online.

Makino is set to embark on a future cloud strategy where 90% of their data and applications will be in cloud by next year. Since Aryaka SmartConnect provides accelerated access to any application, on premises or in the cloud, they now have an infrastructure in place to handle the upcoming migration, and can deliver data and applications to every end-user as if it lived in the local datacenter.

Makino Results with Aryaka

Data Replication Times 6-7 hours down to 22 minutes

Application Improvement

As Much as 99MBps Peak Bandwidth Saved

97% Data Reduction Across Applications

Deployment in Days vs. Weeks or Months for MPLS