Global Brewer Carlsberg Secures Digital Transformation with Zscaler

Carlsberg is a global brewer that owns 140 brands distributed to 150 markets worldwide. In addition to beer, it sells ciders, soft drinks, and bottled water. Carlsberg was founded in 1847 by J.C. Jacobsen and, in 1973, coined its famous tagline, “Probably the best beer in the world.” The company has 41,000 employees worldwide and is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, with regional operations throughout Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Over the past few years, Carlsberg has undergone a company-wide transformation with the aim of moving closer to its purpose of 'Brewing for a better today and tomorrow.'

Carlsberg, a global brewer headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, was facing a significant challenge in modernizing its IT infrastructure. The company had been operating a traditional centralized network that was not set up to accommodate the needs of today’s businesses and users. The network consisted of a hub-and-spoke architecture, MPLS with central internet breakouts, and centralized security controls. This resulted in a poor user experience, slow connectivity, and lack of visibility into threats and traffic sources. To support its strategic initiative 'Sail ’22', Carlsberg needed to undertake a complete system overhaul, including modernizing the IT infrastructure, embracing Office 365 and moving legacy applications to the cloud, taking control of operational costs, and strengthening security.

To address these challenges, Carlsberg planned to migrate almost all of its traffic to the cloud using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365. The company initiated the project by upgrading all its laptops and desktops to Microsoft Windows 10, supplying employees with next-generation machines. They also introduced a new and improved service desk, along with self-service tools and chatbots. The Carlsberg team then took measures to simplify operations in preparation for moving to the cloud. They reduced the number of applications from 873 to 350 and their on-premises servers from 1,300 to 700. Carlsberg introduced SD-WAN to enable local breakouts and optimize the use of MPLS. It traded its traditional network perimeter security for Zscaler Internet Access, which offers a complete security stack delivered as a cloud service. Zscaler protects today’s mobile users, who are no longer operating behind traditional network appliance security stacks but are instead connecting straight to the cloud, where their applications live.

• The operational results of Carlsberg's digital transformation have been significant. The company has successfully migrated to the cloud, transforming its security to one that’s based on protecting users, not networks. The deployment of Zscaler has simplified Office 365 deployment, eliminating the need for IT to manually maintain network access control lists (ACLs), along with IP and new DNS addresses. Zscaler has also improved the user experience by optimizing Office 365 and internet traffic for better performance and faster connectivity. Furthermore, Zscaler has provided Carlsberg with full visibility at the user and application levels, helping the IT team identify threats and monitor traffic patterns and trends. The company has also managed to keep the network up and running throughout the migration process.

• Reduced the number of applications from 873 to 350
• Reduced on-premises servers from 1,300 to 700
• Migrated 600 servers to the cloud