Professional Services

The complexity of regionally distributed operations

Most people associate the YMCA with local recreation facilities and gyms. But the YMCA of Niagara is a highly distributed organization providing critical community services from 125+ locations across the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada. They are the largest child care provider in the region and also run day camps, EarlyON Family and Child Centres, Employment and Newcomer Services and several other youth and community programs. The organization has been adding two or three new locations annually, and that pace is accelerating. 

As with any fast-growing, distributed organization, YMCA of Niagara’s small IT team faces significant networking and security challenges. Their networks are constantly accessed by a highly diverse population—including a large number of sporadic users as well as permanent and temporary staff—with a mix of managed and unmanaged devices. 

“Given the scope of our operations, we support an extremely diverse clientele,” says Dominik Klopfer, General Manager of Information Technology at YMCA of Niagara. “Securing this complex environment means protecting staff data, ensuring the privacy of community members, and strictly navigating Canadian privacy laws, all while keeping a sprawling infrastructure online and accessible.”

Escaping the consumer-grade trap

Like many growing organizations, YMCA of Niagara was being held back by fragmented, consumer-grade network devices and multiple uncoordinated internet providers. This disjointed architecture severely limited visibility. Almost blind to network performance anomalies and security threats, the team was operating almost entirely in a reactive state, manually troubleshooting network issues and piecing together solutions.

If a network switch was accidentally unplugged, or if a facility experienced a power failure, the IT team had no way to remotely diagnose the issue. "Before we upgraded to Cisco, we were in the dark," recalls Klopfer. "We basically had to go on site for almost every call, driving up to an hour just to power-cycle a device or plug a cable back in.” The team could neither proactively scale the organization's networking infrastructure nor confidently defend its expanding digital footprint.

Creating a solid network foundation

To address these challenges, YMCA of Niagara launched a comprehensive modernization initiative, with simplicity, manageability, and improved security as the primary goals. The critical first step: create a robust, standardized and scalable network architecture across all locations. 

By deploying cloud-managed Cisco Meraki solutions—including Meraki MX security appliances for secure SD-WAN, Meraki MS switches for network performance, Cisco wireless access points for reliable Wi-Fi coverage, and Meraki MV smart security cameras—the team was able to unify everything under the Cisco Meraki dashboard, providing a single, intuitive management interface. 

The team then added Cisco XDR, effortlessly weaving advanced security into the network fabric. Telemetry from Meraki feeds into Cisco XDR with everything natively integrated into the Meraki dashboard, enabling unified threat detection and response across the entire operation. “We see a lot of value in having our cybersecurity and networking tools integrated,” explains Klopfer. “With all the data in one place, we can track any incident from a single dashboard and respond immediately.” 

Going all-in on Cisco

The modernization proved so successful and so cost-effective that YMCA of Niagara decided to go all-in on Cisco. The board of directors okayed the replacement of all remaining third-party equipment with Cisco and approved the purchase of Cisco Premier Breach Protection Suite, which also upgrades the organization to the Cisco XDR managed service.

Cisco Breach Protection Suite provides protection against data breaches across web, email, network, and client endpoints. It includes Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense to block phishing attacks, Cisco Secure Endpoint to enhance endpoint protection, and more.

By opting for the Premier version of the suite, the YMCA gained access to Cisco XDR Premier, which includes 24x7x365 threat monitoring by Cisco’s Managed XDR (MXDR) team. MXDR acts as a force-multiplier for the internal team, providing round-the-clock monitoring and initial threat triage. "Having Cisco's MXDR team in place allows us to sleep at night," Klopfer explains. "Without it, we wouldn’t be able to react as quickly to threats that arise on nights and weekends."

Given the need to simplify access and protect a diverse pool of users, the YMCA also relies on Cisco Duo and Cisco Identity Intelligence for frictionless multi-factor authentication, providing complete visibility and control over user authentication. Cisco Secure Access delivers safe browsing for public Wi-Fi users. 

Stepping up their game

The new network and security platform has dramatically reduced the daily IT burden. Support incidents have plummeted by 70%, onsite calls are a third of the previous volume, and the Mean Time To Respond (MTTR) has decreased by over 80%.

Klopfer and his team have gained the bandwidth to focus on strategic projects like a new CRM, but they still maintain full visibility and control of the network. For example, when Klopfer noticed a massive spike in public Wi-Fi usage at one of the YMCA’s employment centers, a quick investigation revealed that visitors at a neighboring business were tapping into the guest network. Armed with instant insight, the team quickly adjusted signal strength and access to maintain security and protect bandwidth for YMCA customers.

The platform is helping paint the IT team in a new light. AI-driven reporting in Cisco XDR and Cisco Identity Intelligence dashboards generate intuitive incident summaries with clear visualizations that help prove the platform’s tremendous ROI to the board of directors.

Cybersecurity has also improved substantially. The YMCA regularly undergoes a Cyber Quotient Evaluation (CyQu) provided by Aon. Before Cisco, the organization only scored a 2.0 on Aon’s 5-point scale, but since implementing Cisco and Cisco Breach Protection Suite Premier, that score has risen to 3.1. “The amount of information that we get from our Cisco networking and security tools is a game changer,” concludes Klopfer. “Cisco gives lean IT teams like ours the time, freedom, and confidence to keep upping our game as the organization grows.”