CRN sat down with Graham Wittke and Maik Straube from ASI Solutions and their client, Ardent Leisure Group IT Services & Operations manager Jason Jordan, to discuss a major networking rollout across the Gold Coast theme park.
CRN: Jason, perhaps you could start by telling us a bit about the business need that drove this project.
Jason: As the networking requirements of the park have continued to grow, we found that the equipment that we had in place was – I wouldn’t say failing us – but certainly limiting us. The previous equipment was installed maybe five or six years ago.
From a business perspective, we were seeing the limitations; within the park we were starting to see things choke up a bit. We were also looking to improve network redundancy throughout the park to ensure if something went down, we wouldn’t lose our network. So expansion from a disaster recovery perspective was necessary. Improving overall bandwidth was also necessary and we also saw customer demand for wireless become greater.
CRN: How are the networking requirements of a theme park changing?
Jason: As more of your equipment is becoming network-enabled – even the turnstiles that let people in each day – the systems that run in the background are taking data in and providing middleware that relays to a database. You have this situation where management knows that you are capturing that data and they want to see it on the reporting side.
You have video games, you have ticket taking, you have e-commerce systems – with those types of demand growing, you are seeing more data throughput and thereby needing better infrastructure to support a network. That comes down to your bandwidth constraint and, more importantly, how you are managing what goes through and how that data is being processed.
CRN: Is the wireless network more for Dreamworld operations or for customers?
Jason: Right now, it’s a balancing act. We have a Q4U system set up over our park-wide wireless network. If a customer wants to jump the queue, they can upgrade to this service and get a ‘Q-Bot’, which is essentially a device that alerts the customer that it’s their time to ride. It’s similar technology – albeit a bit more sophisticated – to the buzzers you get at a pub to let you know your food is ready.
CRN: Is that running off the back of the wireless network?
Jason: Yes, it runs off the same park-wide wireless infrastructure that our public Wi-Fi runs off of, just on a separate SSID. Our business wireless network runs off of a different, unadvertised SSID, so the traffic is kept separate.
CRN: What are the challenges around public wireless across the park and how do you manage them?
Jason: Bandwidth was the biggest issue. The challenge is accommodating the increasing demand to utilise social media, such as Facebook and YouTube. Our customers love sharing their experiences in the park and we want to encourage it, so designing a network to cope with the demand is challenging indeed.
To date there hasn’t been a major marketing drive, as we wanted to soft-launch the capability, but it’s something our international customers will really be excited about because it gives them the opportunity to immediately show what they’ve done in the park to their friends and family back home.
CRN: Internally, who was involved in kicking off this project and how long did it take to get signed off?
Jason: Initially it was the group IT manager, Steven Wallace, and Steven van Rooyen, who was our network administrator at the time. We also took a lot of advice from Brocade on how we would actually set that up. The total timeframe was about six months.
CRN: Graham, at what point did ASI Solutions get involved and what was ASI’s input?
Graham: Ardent asked who they could partner with and our name came up through a recommendation from Brocade. We didn’t have a great deal to do with the actual implementation; we were more on the logistics and back-end stuff.
We relied heavily on Iain Robertson, who is the local Brocade systems engineer. Iain is probably one of the most knowledgeable technical people that I’ve ever met.
Then we came and had several meetings with the guys and we developed a level of comfort that in confidence we could deliver. We didn’t supply or deploy the wireless network; we put the backbone network in and that enabled the wireless to work much more efficiently.
CRN: Why was it important that the solution was Power-over-Ethernet?
Jason: Brocade and the Power-over-Ethernet switching facilitated the meshed network across the park. This allowed the WAPs to go into areas we couldn’t previously, as the prior equipment wasn’t PoE. For Dreamworld, when you start talking about cabling, it’s not as simple as going out and putting a cable on the wall. You might have to go through an attraction, and there’s the customer disruption that goes with it. This was very low risk as regards to disruption. It just saved us a lot of time and allowed us to go a lot faster as well.
CRN: When can the work be done?
Jason: Typically, we’re doing things from 6.00am up to open at around 9.00am. We had an external vendor, Internet Now, help us install the WAPs on top of the different attractions. Previously, Wi-Fi had a limited perimeter around each ride that was very limited in its ability. We put in close to 33 Brocade switches and 50-60 WAPs.
Next: Time pressures
CRN: Tell me about the time pressures.
Graham: We’d started the discussions with JJ’s predecessor and they were debating which way to go. Then I was in Darling Harbour and I got a call saying, ‘We need 11 of these switches and I need them in a week’. Then as soon as those 11 were ordered, virtually the next day, they ordered another 15 or so.
CRN: How available was the product?
Graham: Very few companies hold stock in Australia. We hold some stock, but not that quantity, so we worked with Brocade, and we got the switches pre-built in the States; we express shipped them to Australia and expressed shipped them to the client and they were pretty much here on time.
CRN: You have recently hired Maik Straube, who is a Brocade Distinguished Architect. What will this mean for ASI?
Graham: Where ASI differentiates itself is that we invest in the technologies that we are taking to market. We invest in training, certification levels, stock levels and so on. Initially the discussion wasn’t an architectural discussion, because I didn’t have anybody. But now that I have Maik in Brisbane, that’s going to give us more impetus to be able to bring that to the table. Now we can do everything – not just the logistics, but the design, implementation and installation of the network, whereas we weren’t in a position to do that before.
CRN: Maik, could you tell me a little bit more about your training and certification on Brocade?
Maik: I’ve been working as a network engineer for the past eight years, the last four of them with a key focus on Brocade products, both IP and SAN fibre channel over ethernet.
In my work as an engineer, implementing Brocade products makes my life enormously easier, since their technologies provide simplicity and performance simultaneously. Network engineering has become more and more complex through the years – when talking to customers and analysing their needs, we usually raise topics such as virtualisation, rising demand of high performance on the network, software-defined networking and most important, reliability and redundancy.
CRN: Dreamworld’s parent, Ardent Leisure Group, is a big company. Does that have any broader implications for you?
Jason: When we do acquisitions, such as gyms, they typically have consumer-grade equipment. We have found that going in with a standardised stack from a network perspective has been a really good thing for us.
CRN: Is technology standardised across the group?
Jason :The different brands within the Ardent Leisure Group have different technological requirements, but we standardise where possible to try and gain economies of scale. Some of our sites have public Wi-Fi and some don’t, just depending on customer demand and practicality. Suffice to say, Brocade devices are standardised across the group with Aruba typically rounding out our wireless solutions.
CRN: In this project, what was the bigger focus: the wireless or the switching?
Jason: The bandwidth was a big limitation, more so than the wireless hardware itself. Without the bandwidth, you could draw up a thousand access points, but you’re not going to increase the capability of your network really other than having better coverage. Whereas laying down your infrastructure and having the switches throughout, we can say, ‘Now we have the backbone available to us, where should we put our wireless access points to best gain the maximum coverage?’ That’s what the Brocade 6430s did for us, because they were Wi-Fi access point-enabled PoE.
CRN: How big was the investment?
Jason: Without going into specific costs, the cost savings over traditional manufacturers has been considerable, and that isn’t to say that by saving on costs that we’ve lost anything on quality. Quite the opposite. We feel strongly that the quality of the Brocade product has been outstanding.
CRN: Are there conversations about further increasing your network capacity?
Jason: Yes, absolutely. With the advent of social networking as a marketing tool, and collaboration tools, videoconferencing, Microsoft Lync – collaboration is going to drive a higher and higher need for bandwidth. Strategically, you can throw more pipe at it, but that’s not a smart way of doing business. In my opinion, it is better to utilise data analysis technology such as Riverbed or Brocade’s equivalent.
The goalposts are constantly shifting. Throwing more pipe at it is a quick fix but if you’re not controlling that flow of data, you’re going to max out the size of the pipe pretty quick. In my opinion, it is better to utilise data analysis technologies to determine reasonable bandwidth measures and then implement quality-of-service quotas to ensure maximised bandwidth for prioritised systems.
CRN: How does this project for Dreamworld fit with ASI’s broader strategy?
Graham: We want to work with innovative companies and bigger corporates like Dreamworld and Ardent. That is boosted by getting people like Maik on board, so we can value-add by working directly with customers to help them develop solutions. Any time there’s a new product or innovation from Brocade, we can actually come down and present to them and keep them up to date from a technological perspective.
Jason: It’s important to note that ASI, and Graham specifically, understood us. We’re very willing to spend to improve our overall posture, but we’re also very cost-conscious and always look for value for money. Graham is not here just trying to push something on us because it’s the latest and greatest; he understands that we’re going to be considered in our approach to implementation. So it’s been a really good partnership.
Graham: That’s the takeaway from my point of view. I don’t want to be a box provider – I want to be a business partner who can understand somebody’s business. Not just to sell something, but add real value that’s going to affect the bottom line of the company. In recent times, ASI has put a lot more investment into highly trained people to back up the technologies that they already bring to market.
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