STAFF WERE TURNING TO SERVICES SUCH AS DROPBOX AND GOOGLE DRIVE TO STORE COMPANY DATA . THIS WAS FAR FROM IDEAL .
INDUSTRY WATCH
STAFF WERE TURNING TO SERVICES SUCH AS DROPBOX AND GOOGLE DRIVE TO STORE COMPANY DATA . THIS WAS FAR FROM IDEAL .
Established in 2006 , Riverland Group operates six hospitality venues in Melbourne ’ s central business district and the inner suburbs of Elsternwick and Brunswick . The venues offer a mix of bar and food services and cater for locals and visitors alike .
Riverland ’ s first venture was the iconic Riverland Bar located on the Edge of the Yarra River , directly below Federation Square . The group employs between 150 and 400 staff , depending on the season .
During the past few years , as the group grew in size and turnover , it became clear its existing data networking capabilities were no longer able to provide the level of support required .
Riverland Group Finance Manager , Rohan Brodie , says the company had been reliant on ageing network links that were struggling to provide the level of performance and reliability needed in each venue and within the company ’ s head office .
The first step taken by Riverland Group was to engage an external technology consultant to advise on the options available for the company . A request for proposal ( RFP ) was issued and a short list of four potential managed service providers ( MSPs ) was drawn up .
Above : Riverlands Group Bang Bang venue Previous page : Happy Hour at the Hotel Railway
“ We had been using a remote desktop environment through which staff accessed file servers , our Bepoz in-venue point-of-sale system , and our back-office applications ,” Brodie said . “ Increasingly , they were finding this setup very clunky and slow to use .”
“ After carefully reviewing the responses , we took the decision to engage itro as our new MSP . We were impressed with their responsiveness and the network solution that they proposed to deploy and manage for us .”
As a result , growing numbers of staff were turning to services such as Dropbox and Google Drive to store company data . This was far from ideal and was causing increasing concerns when it came to data security .
“ We had no effective way to manage our network links or monitor usage ,” said Brodie . “ As a company , we also had a desire to take advantage of cloud-based resources including Office 365 and Microsoft Teams .
Once the contract had been designed , work began on network design . A decision was made to deploy a WatchGuard FireBox T40 firewall appliance with Total Security Suite at each venue with virtual private network ( VPN ) links back to the Microsoft Azure cloud where applications and data would be located . WatchGuard ’ s DNS WatchGo was also incorporated into the design to provide content filtering and DNSlevel protection .
“ For these reasons , we knew we had to change and so , in early 2020 , we began the search for an alternative .”
However , disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in delays to the project ’ s rollout .
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