The Challenge

Hollywood Bowl's network was nearing the end of its life cycle. Complexity in the setup was very apparent with technologies like access control lists (ACLs) causing the business to have a lack of flexibility. In addition to aging technology, multiple technology manufacturers had been used over the years - leading to a disjointed infrastructure that lacked overall visibility, control, and compliance for the business. There were also challenges being encountered as the bowling centres digitally evolved and became more dependent on cloud services.
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A substantial upgrade was needed.
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Hollywood Bowl needed to be agile and react to new requirements as the business continued to evolve. This included having complete visibility and central orchestration over the network whilst protecting the entire attack surface. Having received excellent service from Communicate Technology for over 8 years, Hollywood Bowl approached Communicate Technology for a network refresh that would overcome their challenges and future proof the business.
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The Solution

Communicate Technology recommended the introduction of a SD-WAN architecture – specifically the deployment of Fortinet's FortiGate and SD-Branch platforms.
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The SD-WAN solution was tailor-designed by Communicate Technology to meet Hollywood Bowl's requirements. Central to this is the introduction of a single-pane-of-glass solution: this gives the network management team full visibility across the network and greatly simplifies control and the introduction of changes across the network (including the ability to deliver business objects on the fly in minutes, avoiding laborious hands-on configuration of branch equipment that previously required extensive planning).
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The solution includes:

• A central FortiGate high availability firewall cluster
• FortiGuard Unified Threat Management (UTM) security
• FortiGuard SD-Branch Firewalls in each branch
• Fortinet PoE Switches
• Fortinet Next Generation Wi-Fi 6 capable Access Points
• Creation of an integrated security fabric, including firewall, switch and WiFi integration
• Introduction of dual resilience for bowling centre network connections using the latest fibre-based products
• Replacing Active/Passive configurations with SD-WAN enabled Active/Active paths, adding carrier failover, application awareness and application steering
• Network operations services covering the full stack, fully managed with direct support for the Hollywood Bowl IT team
• Configuration management services to support the build-out and high-availability SLA across the SD-WAN
• Configuration to meet new Quality of Service (QoS) policies to guarantee voice traffic for back office and front office
• Distributed switches for connection of bowling equipment (scoring devices, refreshment reordering systems etc.)
• Enhanced capabilities for logging and analysis

Positive Results

The SD-WAN solution is enabling Hollywood Bowl's technology evolution and business objectives to be achieved faster. A more secure infrastructure has been delivered, and network connection and dependability has been increased, with an effective doubling of bandwidth through introduction of Active/Active paths and next generation fibre connectivity.
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In brief, Hollywood Bowl has been able to reduce the complexity of its network, with all technical challenges and impediments to delivering business change that this complexity caused, while significantly increasing the security of its systems.
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The boost to security in a business whose product is delivering great customer experience is particularly important as cybersecurity threats continue to increase and extend throughout all networks.
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As a software defined WAN (SD-WAN) solution, changes can now be easily made on any aspect of the network in all of the locations where the Fortinet SD-Branch solution has been deployed.
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By adopting the Communicate Technology fully managed SD-WAN service offering throughout the network, considerable advantages have been delivered.

"Hollywood Bowl Group have worked with Communicate Technology for over 8 years and they have provided all of our networking requirements, as well as many other services. They are one of our most trusted providers with excellent consultancy and support. When we required a full review of our network infrastructure, Communicate Technology was at the forefront of the decision making."
"We required a network which would give us a robust and resilient architecture but also provided the required security layers - as well as future proofing the estate and removing end of life solutions."
"We are delighted to have a future-proof, robust and resilient network with an SD-WAN infrastructure, supported by a highly skilled and forward thinking partner. We continue to grow our business and we can do so in the knowledge that we have a secure and fast, resilient network, which will support the business growth and our IT and Digital strategy."
Dave Wilson, IT Director, Hollywood Bowl Group