The Power of Platform Consolidation

We often have conversations with customers who struggle to deploy, manage or maintain infrastructure across numerous sites. Managing 50, 100 or 1000+ sites can be a challenge in itself and is often exacerbated when organizations have grown through acquisition and have various manufacturers across their environment . As these organizations expand, their IT ecosystems become a patchwork of different technologies and vendors, leading to a host of challenges—from managing support renewals to inconsistent security practices and standardized configuration management.

One of the most effective ways we help clients regain control over their IT ecosystem is through platform consolidation. By streamlining their technology stack and selecting a single partner to provide a comprehensive solution, organizations can simplify management, enhance security, and drive efficiency across their business.

The Challenge: Managing a Fragmented IT Ecosystem

Organizations with multiple remote sites or those that have experienced rapid growth through acquisitions often find themselves managing a diverse and fragmented IT environment. This complexity brings several challenges:

1. Difficult Management and Monitoring

When your infrastructure includes equipment from a dozen different vendors, each with its own management interface, configuration style, and update cycle, keeping everything running smoothly becomes a monumental task. IT teams spend countless hours managing disparate systems, leading to inefficiencies and increased risk.

2. Inconsistent Security

A fragmented IT ecosystem makes it harder to maintain consistent security practices across your organization. Different devices may have varying levels of security features, and patching or updating them all in a timely manner can be very difficult. This leaves gaps in your defenses, making your organization more vulnerable to security breaches.

3. Increased Operational Costs

Supporting multiple vendors often means higher costs for training, maintenance, and support. IT staff need to be familiar with multiple systems, which increases the time and expense required to maintain operational efficiency. Additionally, licensing and support contracts for various products can quickly add up and be difficult to manage.

The Solution: Consolidation with a Single Vendor Solution

To overcome these challenges, organizations must consider consolidating their IT infrastructure by selecting a single partner that offers a full stack solution. A partner like Fortinet, which provides everything from access points to firewalls with centralized management, patching, and monitoring, can truly transform your IT operations.

Here are some of the benefits of platform consolidation:

1. Simplified Management and Monitoring

Consolidating your IT ecosystem under a single vendor significantly simplifies management an monitoring. With a unified platform, like Fortinet, IT teams can manage all devices from a single interface, reducing complexity. Solutions such as FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer greatly simplify this for organizations and make centralized management a breeze for administrators.

2. Enhanced Security

A unified security approach is far more effective than trying to patch together a strategy across different vendors’ products. A full stack solution from a single vendor ensures that all components are designed to work together, offering a more cohesive security posture.

Additionally, with a consolidated environment, applying patches and updates becomes a much simpler process. Rather than managing multiple update schedules across various vendors, updates can easily be deployed and managed in one place, ensuring all devices are secure and up-to-date.

3. Cost Efficiency

While the initial investment in a consolidated IT stack might seem significant, the long-term savings are considerable. By reducing the number of vendors, you can lower operational costs and simplify your IT budget. Making it easier to track and manage renewals while also providing additional discount opportunities and negotiation power with your vendor.

4. Improved Scalability and Flexibility

As your organization grows, whether organically or through acquisitions, a single vendor IT stack makes scaling up much easier. Allowing organizations to add new sites, users, or services with minimal disruption and with only marginal support costs.

For organizations with a large number of remote sites or those that have grown through acquisition, managing a fragmented IT ecosystem can be a significant burden. Consolidation to a single vendor solution for remote site infrastructure offers a way to streamline operations, enhance security, and reduce costs.

This is why at RL Canning we are a Fortinet partner. We believe strongly in their ability, more than any other manufacture to provide a single consolidated solution to meet our clients’ needs. By leveraging the Forti ecosystem we can help clients transform their infrastructure into a more easily managed solution, through a single manufacturer without breaking the bank.

By simplifying management, ensuring consistent security practices, and driving down operational costs, consolidation empowers your organization to focus on what truly matters: driving growth and innovation. In a world where technology is constantly evolving, having a unified, efficient IT ecosystem is not just an advantage—it’s a necessity.