Customer Background
Multinet Trust Exchange LLC is a significant player in the remittances and exchange market in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with a history of nearly 25 years. The company is known for its trustworthiness and has established a solid reputation in customer and corporate satisfaction. It offers a variety of financial services, including foreign currency exchange, remittances, wage payment systems, loyalty cards, and more. The company operates in multiple locations, with its head office situated in Dubai. It also provides additional support and services through its partnerships with various banks.
Image source: http://www.multinettrust.com/about-2/
Customer Pain Points
Complex Management of Traditional Data Center Architecture:
- Multinet was operating with a traditional data center architecture. This setup was complex to manage and hard to scale as the business expanded.
- Server failures or downtime in such a setup can have severe impacts on the exchange business, including transaction delays or losses. These can erode customer trust and affect the company’s reputation.
Local Compliance and Data Localization:
- In the UAE, money exchange businesses like Multinet are subject to strict regulatory requirements. These include setting up in-country backup/disaster recovery and submitting regular security risk assessment reports to the central bank.
- However, compliance with these regulations resulted in increased costs due to the need for local data storage solutions, enhanced security measures, and regular auditing and reporting.
Branch SD-WAN Connectivity:
Multinet Trust Exchange sought an SD-WAN solution to centrally manage, optimize, and secure its network comprising multiple branches.
Sangfor Solution for Multinet Trust Exchange
Multinet Trust Exchange deployed Sangfor Network Secure (formerly Sangfor NGAF), a next-generation firewall equipped with SD-WAN capability, to provide secure and efficient connectivity between branches.
It also replaced its traditional servers with Sangfor HCI (Hyperconverged Infrastructure) and set up a local disaster recovery (DR) site using its built-in disaster recovery (DR) module.
How Multinet Trust Exchange Benefited from Sangfor Solutions
Sangfor Network Secure
- Secure SD-WAN Solution: Network Secure’s SD-WAN capability enabled Multinet to establish secure IPSec connections between its various sites. This is helping the company maintain high levels of service quality across its branches. It has also helped improve data security and reduce network management complexity and costs.
- Built-in Risk Assessment Function: Network Secure’s built-in risk assessment function helps Multinet comply with regulatory requirements with ease. It identifies intranet risks and generates reports of assessment results for the company to submit to the central bank. This has reduced the costs and resources previously dedicated to third-party analysis and assessment.
- Advanced Network Protection: Multinet Trust Exchange chose the Network Secure firewall over a standalone SD-WAN solution for added protection against network breaches. Network Secure employs advanced technologies and features, such as AI-enabled threat detection and real-time threat intelligence, to block up to 99% of network breaches. For a financial institution like Multinet Trust Exchange, protecting sensitive financial data is paramount to maintaining customer trust.
Sangfor HCI
- Server Replacement: Sangfor HCI converges traditional data center elements of compute, storage, networking into a single software stack. This integrated design allows Multinet to scale resources according to business growth by simply connecting additional nodes to the cluster.
- In-Country Disaster Recovery: Multinet Trust Exchange leveraged Sangfor HCI’s built-in DR module to set up a local DR site, thereby meeting the in-country DR requirement efficiently and cost-effectively.
- Unified Management and Real-Time Protection: The Sangfor Cloud Platform (SCP) offers single-pane-of-glass management. It features a one-click failover function to simplify the DR process. Moreover, the management platform offers real-time monitoring of data center status and data security. This helps operations staff to promptly identify and resolve potential issues, minimizing downtime and data loss.
Conclusion
With the adoption of Sangfor HCI and Network Secure, Multinet Trust Exchange effectively addressed key pain points, such as poor scalability, complex and costly compliance, and poor multi-branch connectivity. With this strategic technology upgrade, Multinet further enhanced its reputation for reliability and customer satisfaction in the UAE’s competitive financial services market.