Untangle Helps Hotel Networks Stay Afloat
No Ordinary Hotel
Industry: Hospitality
Network Size: 2 locations with 10 servers each, 150 desktops, and 25 mobile devices. Over 100 concurrent users on the internal network and between 300-600 guest users connected to the guest Wi-Fi.
“We ended up testing out the NG Firewall Complete package and was amazed at how easy it was to set up a safe, reliable guest Wi-Fi network while protecting our back-of-the-house operations.”
Background
No Ordinary Hotel is the parent company of two unique hotels in the United Kingdom, the Lumley Castle Hotel and Coombe Abbey Hotel. The Lumley Castle Hotel is a 14-century castle located in County Durham, while the Coombe Abbey Hotel is a 12-century converted country house located in Warwickshire. Both are 4-star hotels that have spectacular venues for weddings, conferences and special events. Mohammad Ahmad is the Group IT Manager at No Ordinary Hotel.
NG Firewall Has Everything
As a 4-star popular hotel chain, No Ordinary Hotel must protect their internal network, as well as provide safe and secure Wi-Fi to their guests. One of the challenges of running a fast, reliable network was that guests were choking up the bandwidth with movie downloads, often bringing the network down. Mohammad also had a responsibility to ensure guests are not engaging in illegal downloads. Another key task, in addition to keeping critical network infrastructure running, was to ensure the internal network was separated and protected from guest access.
After searching for a solution for more than 2 years, Mohammad came across Untangle’s NG Firewall solution in an online forum and decided to try it out. “Downloading the free trial was a great way to get started,” said Mohammad. “We ended up testing out the NG Firewall Complete package and was amazed at how easy it was to set up a safe, reliable guest Wi-Fi network while protecting our back-of-the-house operations. Our decision was simple, as Untangle is a low-cost, all-in-one solution.”
Time Saved with Untangle
NG Firewall has solved the two main problems No Ordinary Hotel was facing. With the Captive Portal application, Mohammad is able to force guests onto a separate Wi-Fi network with an Acceptable Use Policy, ensuring users comply with the hotel’s networking rules. “The Web Filter application has allowed me to block inappropriate and unknown sites for both the guest and company Wi-Fi, protecting our guests and employees,” said Mohammad.
By providing separate networks for guests and staff, Mohammad is able to set up different rules for each network. With the Reports application, Mohammad can easily keep track of all staff activity through its extensive logging and dynamic charts that allow him to drill down into individual users’ activity. “Untangle has not only saved us money, it has saved us time. Knowing it is working silently in the background, protecting our guests and keeping our network operations running, helps me sleep at night.”
