Perth brewer Good Drinks taps Macquarie Telecom to improve network capabilities

Perth-based independent brewer Good Drinks has inked a deal with Macquarie Telecom to improve its network capabilities and protect it from outages during peak trading seasons.

Good Drinks is one of Australia’s largest independent brewers, with around 300 staff nationally across manufacturing, distribution and hospitality. It has key sites in Western Australia and Queensland.

The company identified several underlying network challenges that were limiting efficiency and increasing risk, including cloud archive rules creating unnecessary data storage growth, as well as misalignment between two authentication platforms, network resilience issues that occasionally disrupted backup access and gaps in firewall security.

“For a smaller brewery these issues would be less of a concern but as the business grew, we knew we needed better support and protection mechanisms,” said Good Drinks business system analyst and IT support IT Manager Kelly French.

“I had worked with Macquarie Telecom before and the company presented a SASE (security access network edge) solution that would bring intelligence and security to our networks, reducing risk while improving efficiency. Macquarie is the backbone of our network, and it allows us to contribute at a higher level within the company.”

French said the improved network capability allows the company to focus on business growth while maintaining confidence in the reliability of its underlying technology infrastructure.

“Recently we had a network upgrade, and we prepared for an outage to allow for the work, but nothing was disrupted. Background jobs weren’t affected. That's what you want out of a network. Things can get upgraded in the background, and everything else just keeps ticking along and the end users don't see any issues,” he said.

“Our cyber security posture is vastly improved. But if we do get compromised, we can show how we got compromised, where we got compromised, and what we can do to correct the issue and try and prevent it from reoccurring in the future.”

Looking ahead, Good Drinks is exploring opportunities to expand the partnership with Macquarie Telecom, including additional connectivity solutions for mobile teams and the potential use of edge computing and hosting capabilities to support future growth.