When I stepped into the role, our network was fragmented and built on outdated switches, isolated VLANs, and unstable point-to-point VPNs. Cross-site collaboration was slow and unreliable, with frequent downtime impacting SolidWorks workflows, VoIP, and business-critical applications.

I began with a full infrastructure audit that included mapping topologies, measuring traffic loads, analyzing latency, and identifying performance gaps. Based on this, I proposed a unified multi-site backbone using fiber-based Metro Ethernet and Meraki SD-WAN overlays. This allowed us to build a scalable, resilient, and secure network centralized for control but optimized for performance.

The technical highlights included:

• 10Gbps fiber links between the main site and HQ, and 5Gbps between secondary sites
  
  
• Cisco Catalyst and Meraki MS switches for core routing and segmentation
  
  
• SD-WAN traffic shaping and auto-failover with redundant ISP circuits and OSPF dynamic routing
  
  
• QoS enforcement for latency-sensitive traffic like VoIP, Zoom, and Solidworks file transfers
  
  

Each site was segmented by VLAN with a consistent IP schema and unified DHCP/DNS design. I centralized services like file shares, domain controllers, and print servers replacing legacy site-specific setups with high-availability resources managed from our core data center and replicated in real-time using DFS and Veeam.

Security was enforced through strict firewall rules, inter-site access control, and Meraki templates backed by Git versioning. We built real-time monitoring with PRTG, integrated alerts into Microsoft Teams, and implemented warm standby servers to ensure failover capability.