BUSINESS SURVEILLANCE

Riverland Group needed to enhance its network security capabilities and selected WatchGuard to provide the answer . Riverland Group Finance Manager , Rohan Brodie , tells us that WatchGuard firewalls and DNS monitoring capabilities have served to significantly improve the overall level of IT security at all of its venues and within head office . This has now made it possible to monitor all data traffic and have better oversight of resources at all times .

stablished 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 .

The challenge

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 , said 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 .

“ We had been using a remote desktop environment through which staff accessed file servers , our Bepoz invenue point-of-sale system and our back-office applications ,” said Brodie . “ Increasingly , they were finding this setup very clunky and slow to use .”

As a result , growing numbers of staff were turning to alternative services 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 . For these reasons , we knew we had to change and so , in early 2020 , we began the search for an alternative .”

The solution

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 .

“ After carefully reviewing the responses , we took the decision to engage itro as our new MSP . We were impressed with its responsiveness and the network solution that it proposed to deploy and manage for us .”

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 DNS-level protection .

However , disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in delays to the project ’ s rollout . While work

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