Zero-downtime infrastructure for a fast-growing specialty pharma: Cipher Pharmaceuticals
As Cipher Pharmaceuticals scaled across the U.S. and Canada and stood up a new U.S. headquarters, it needed to replace aging infrastructure with zero operational downtime. Katalyst planned and delivered the move.
About Cipher Pharmaceuticals
Cipher Pharmaceuticals is a growing specialty company focused on dermatology, with a goal of developing and acquiring best-in-class skin care solutions for unmet medical needs. Cipher brings strong financials, a robust and growing product portfolio, and experienced executive leadership with proven commercial execution.
The Challenge
The original company, operating as Innocutis, was acquired by Cipher, a public company, and experienced extremely fast-paced growth across the U.S. and Canada. Cipher needed to replace an aging computing and networking infrastructure to keep up with demand. At the same time, the company was establishing a new U.S. headquarters and required zero operational downtime during the infrastructure replacement and migration to the new location.
The Solution
Katalyst was hands-on with new office planning and infrastructure build-out, working alongside Cipher's leadership to provide support and clear direction. To meet growth and performance demand, the infrastructure was brought up to modern best-practice standards. Cisco Catalyst switches and Cisco Meraki wireless networking handled the high volume of data across the new headquarters, providing traffic segmentation, data governance, and compliance oversight. The server infrastructure was upgraded with a VMware physical-to-virtual migration of all servers.
The Results
Cipher experienced no operational downtime during the transition, meeting a critical project goal. The company achieved operational efficiency across all user groups while ensuring data control and integrity. The networking architecture gave Cipher seamless, independent control of corporate-owned, BYOD, and guest devices. The VMware environment delivered effective use of hardware resources, flexible workload migration with Cipher's existing cloud, and expanded options for disaster recovery and data availability, positioning Cipher to keep scaling.
Key Takeaways
- Zero downtime, by design. A full infrastructure replacement and HQ move with no operational interruption.
- Built for compliance. Segmentation, data governance, and oversight baked into the network.
- Device control. Independent handling of corporate, BYOD, and guest devices.
- Ready to scale. A virtualized environment with stronger DR and data availability.
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