Leading Renewable Energy Group Successfully Transforms Network Infrastructure with VyOS

“With VyOS as their chosen network operating system, the Cooperative experienced a successful transformation of their network infrastructure. Their ability to disentangle themselves from the limitations and complexities of the major vendor's products allowed them to gain control and leverage the benefits of disaggregation. VyOS not only met their initial use case requirements of high latency management, on-premises VPN endpoints, and routing capabilities but also offered the potential for further expansion into disaggregated switching and enhanced routing functionality. The Cooperative is eager to explore these possibilities and intends to deploy VyOS alongside other vendors in a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) configuration. As they continue their journey with VyOS, the Cooperative looks forward to joining other organizations that have adopted VyOS in their core networks, expanding their network capabilities, and realizing the long-term benefits of this versatile and cost-efficient network operating system.”
— The Leading Renewable Energy Cooperative Team

Customer Overview

The customer is a Leading Renewable Energy Cooperative that found itself facing significant challenges with its existing network infrastructure. They sought to disentangle themselves from the limitations and complexities of major vendor products to gain control and leverage the benefits of disaggregation.

Challenge

The Cooperative faced significant challenges with its existing Cisco network infrastructure.

Vendor Issues: Vendor support deteriorated over time, and the major vendor frequently forced expensive upgrades.
Operational Constraints: Scalability options were limited, and complex licensing models constantly changed, making it increasingly difficult for the Cooperative to manage their network effectively.
Search for CLI: While exploring options like PfSense and OPNsense, they found these solutions lacked a command-line interface (CLI), which was crucial to maintain consistency with their existing workflows.

Why VyOS

Several factors led the Cooperative to choose VyOS as their preferred network operating system.

Open Source: They recognized the advantages of an open-source solution with a large user community, ensuring greater stability and security compared to proprietary alternatives.
Hardware Efficiency: VyOS allowed the Cooperative to leverage their existing x86 platform hardware, maximizing their infrastructure investment.
Scalability: With Ansible integration and a simple, programmatically readable configuration (flat file export), the Cooperative found it easy to scale and manage their network infrastructure.
Cost-Effectiveness: VyOS proved to be a cost-effective solution compared to other vendors, offering lower costs without compromising on functionality.

Implementation

The Cooperative implemented VyOS to meet their initial use case requirements of high latency management, on-premises VPN endpoints, and routing capabilities.

Security Features: Implemented robust security features, including IPSec and secure traffic.
Authentication: Achieved strong authentication using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) directly on the device, eliminating the need for an external RADIUS server.

Results

With VyOS as their chosen network operating system, the Cooperative experienced a successful transformation of their network infrastructure.

Enhanced Protection: VyOS offered robust security features, enhancing the overall protection of their network.
Operational Control: Their ability to disentangle themselves from the limitations of the major vendor's products allowed them to gain control and leverage the benefits of disaggregation.
Service Quality: They found the level of service from other vendors to be subpar, further affirming their decision to switch to VyOS.