Connecting Multiple Locations with Reliable VPN.
River Valley Cooperative.
River Valley Cooperative is a member-owned organization that serves farmers in Illinois and Iowa, United States, to increase overall efficiency and productivity.
Connect All Locations for Higher Service Standard.
To enhance its members’ farming operations and help them adapt to changes in markets and technology, River Valley Cooperative connects allocations to its central office for applications such as email servers,accounting database, and financial programs. At the beginning, aradio-based network had been used to tie the remote locations together. However, network connectivity was complex and costly. As the number of locations grew, River Valley Cooperative wanted a simple, low cost solution that can also improve network reliability.
Todd Phillips, Network Administrator at River Valley Cooperative, searched for a solution to replace its existing radio-based network. “What we need is something that can reliably provide VPN, load balancing, and failover,” says Todd.
He looked at some load balancing brands but found that the upfront costs could be expensive. Other firewall devices lacked the network connectivity and VPN features that they demanded.
Multi-WAN for More Bandwidth and Higher Reliability.
Todd ultimately decided to deploy Peplink Balance since it meets all of his requirements while costing less than other options. “The Peplink Balance has proven to be reliable, and provides the versatility to do what we may want to do at each location,” Todd explains. Now a Peplink Balance 710 is deployed in the River Valley Cooperative central office while a Peplink Balance 380 has become standard equipment at all of its locations.
Using the Peplink Balance, locations where DSL and Cable are limited can have the flexibility to use wireless links such as 3G and Satellite as backup. For larger locations, extra links can be added easily as the bandwidth requirement increases. With Peplink Site-to-Site VPN Bonding, all the links will be bonded to form a redundant connection and achieve maximumreliability. Employees are now able to maintain a reliable and secure connection to the central office at all times, and therefore keep up their high service standard.
Responsive Support Service. Satisfied Customer.
Todd is also very satisfied with Peplink’s support services. The Peplink support team quickly addresses all their issues. “I’m impressed that Peplink has been very responsive to requests I’ve made to improve their firmware,” he says. River Valley Cooperative will continue to deploy Peplink Balance units at each location for expanding its VPN network in providing the highest level of services to all members.