Costa Group Enhances Efficiency with Unified Network Security

SUMMARY

Costa Group is Australia’s leading grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruit and vegetables. The company operates across Australia, as well as internationally in countries such as China, Morocco and the United States.

With farming operations in widespread and remote locations, maintaining network connectivity and ensuring security for all users was a constant challenge. Costa Group needed to move away from traditional MPLS networks and VPNs to a solution that was more resilient, easier to manage and troubleshoot, and more secure.

Adopting an integrated network security platform from Palo Alto Networks enabled Costa Group to make dramatic improvements in network stability and visibility with significant benefits for its users and the business.

RESULTS

0

Interruptions to user experience

50%

Reduction in network support escalations

Days vs. Months

To roll out a new location using Prisma SASE

CHALLENGES

Legacy tools weren’t adequate for globally distributed farming.

Branch farms frequently lost network connectivity due to carrier failures and lack of redundancy.
Loss of network connectivity interrupted employee productivity, impacting operations.
Network visibility was inadequate, making troubleshooting difficult and slow.

“We run a very lean network operation, so we can’t babysit the network constantly. We needed a platform that would help us proactively manage our network and provide greater insights. Palo Alto Networks gives us that 100%."

John Zuniga

Head of IT, Costa group

SOLUTIONS

Costa Group started its network transformation with very specific requirements. “We needed the ability to see and manipulate real-time network traffic to ensure that we could support our users properly,” says John Zuniga, Head of IT at Costa Group. “But above all, we wanted a strong partner with an integrated platform.”

The journey started with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls to improve network security and management. Initially, the team relied on hardware firewalls and later switched to software firewalls.

Costa Group also added the Prisma SASE platform. “All our 50-plus sites are now connected via Prisma SD-WAN, with Prisma Access to provide security,” explains Zuniga. “With Prisma SD-WAN in place, a primary line to a site can drop out and a secondary line kicks in automatically. There’s zero interruption to the user experience.”

Prisma SASE includes Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM), providing visibility into the health and performance of branch farms, users and applications. “I’m a massive fan of ADEM because of the way it visualizes the network path and provides a score for the user experience,” says Zuniga. “We’ve reduced time spent troubleshooting by around 30%, giving our team time to focus on improvements.” Costa Group’s frontline support now uses ADEM to troubleshoot network issues, reducing escalations to network support by 50%.

Finding the best carrier networks for remote farming sites remains one of the biggest challenges. The Costa Group team takes advantage of its SD-WAN appliances’ integrated 5G capabilities wherever 5G is available. Starlink has been deployed in conjunction with Prisma SD-WAN in 30 locations without 5G connectivity.

After a demo of AI Access SecurityTM, Costa Group was impressed with its ability to detect users accessing AI applications, and may add that capability in the future.

The next big effort will be IoT. The team intends to leverage the capabilities of Prisma SASE to eliminate the need for isolated IoT networks, increase network segmentation, and provide secure IoT connectivity on shared networks. Zuniga confirms, “I don’t worry about network stability these days. It’s one less factor I need to think about so I can concentrate on other things in the IT sphere.”