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Table Of Contents
Building a High-speed Infrastructure
Extending Access to the Full Range of Properties
An Integrated Networking Solution
Customer Success Story
Summit Hospitality Group
Upgrades Hotel Internet AccessBackground
Summit Hospitality Group, Ltd. is a hotel and restaurant management company with 490 employees, operating 12 hotels in North Carolina. The company manages properties from the historic Dunhill Hotel in Charlotte, to Marriott and Hilton franchises in the Raleigh tech corridor serving extended-stay business travelers. Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2004, the company has built its success on understanding its customers, and always putting their needs first.
Challenge
Like most hotel management companies, Summit Hospitality's primary source of revenue is business travelers. With the bulk of its business coming from extended-stay properties such as Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, and Fairfield Inn, Summit's success depends on meeting the needs of corporate and professional guests.
For the past decade, computing needs of most traveling professionals could be met through dial-up service via in-room data ports. However, Summit's executive team recognized that the computing landscape for traveling professionals was changing as more and more corporations integrated Web-based network applications into their basic business processes.
"So many of our customers today are using VPNs [virtual private networks] to connect back with corporate network applications," says Greg Wright, chief information officer for Summit Hospitality, Inc. "They expect access to a true mobile office, and to do that, they need high-speed Internet connections."
Many Fortune 100 companies had begun to consider high-speed Internet service a basic requirement for awarding corporate travel contracts, and Summit was finding it more difficult to compete for this business. More importantly, Summit's executive staff was concerned that the company's longstanding reputation for providing superior service to its professional guests might be compromised.
Summit Hospitality needed to deploy a high-speed Internet solution, and needed to do it quickly. But the nature of the management company's hotels presented some unique challenges. Summit's 12 properties represented several different franchises, and each franchise used its own unique network and data systems. The properties were also very diverse constructions—from high-rise buildings, to multi-hotel campuses, to properties with clusters of three- or four-room buildings—and each would require its own unique solution.
Summit planned to manage the entire solution itself rather than use an external service provider, so manageability and interoperability of all components was critical. The company didn't want to end up with a patchwork of equipment from multiple vendors at each site. To provide the level of service professional guests required, the solution would also need to be highly secure, extremely reliable, and straightforward enough that guests could connect easily without having to call the front desk for help.
Finally, Summit's executive team wanted to ensure that the deployment was not just a basic Internet access solution, but could also serve as a foundation for future technologies.
"Managing multiple franchises, Summit needed a solution that would cover all its needs, be acceptable to all the franchises, but would also be flexible enough to support new requirements that might arise," says John Livesay, senior account manager for Summit's technology partner, Computer Services Partners (CSP). "They wanted to address the short-term need for high-speed Internet access while laying the groundwork for things like IP security, IP telephony, and in-room video-on-demand (VoD). They didn't want to have to rip out their architecture three years from now to install something more robust."
Solution
To assist with the evaluation and deployment process, Summit turned to its longtime technology partner, CSP, a North Carolina-based Cisco Systems® Premier Partner specializing in Cisco wireless and security/VPN solutions. After evaluating several options from Cisco and other vendors, Summit and CSP chose Cisco to support the entire solution.
"The Cisco solution was more scalable and more manageable than anything else out there," says Wright. "We're managing our own system, and we don't want to be dependent on anyone else. The Cisco solution allows us to do that. We also felt that with Cisco, we were future proof. We're looking at five-plus years down the road, and we know that this solution will get us there."
Building a High-speed Infrastructure
At each site, the core of Summit's solution is a Cisco Catalyst® 2950 Series switch, a Cisco PIX® 500 Series Security Appliance, and the Cisco Building Broadband Services Manager (BBSM) platform. Guest rooms at most properties were wired with Category 5 cable for in-room Ethernet ports. In common areas like meeting rooms and lobbies, Summit deployed Cisco Aironet® 1200 series wireless access points (APs).
The modular Catalyst switches provide wire-speed Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to deliver maximum performance for dozens of simultaneous users at each site. The switches also provide inline power for all wireless access points in public spaces, eliminating the need to run separate power cables.
The award-winning Cisco PIX Security Appliance delivers the enterprise-class security that business and technology customers demand in a highly manageable, cost-effective platform. Cisco Aironet 1200 Series wireless APs offer a secure, manageable solution for delivering up to 54 Mbps wireless connectivity in both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.
The Cisco BBSM serves as the gateway between Summit's Internet service and its guests, enabling users to access all wired and wireless services from a standard Web browser. The platform handles all authorization, accounting, reporting, policy, and management functions, and allows Summit to deliver customized content to users, including branded gateways for each property.
"The BBSM automatically determines if the user has a static or DHCP [Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol] configuration when connecting to the Internet—something other solutions didn't do," says Livesay. "The security features were also very attractive, ensuring that each guest's connection is private. Other solutions just didn't offer that protection."
Extending Access to the Full Range of Properties
By working with Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking technologies, Summit ensured it could deploy interoperable wired and wireless solutions to fit all of its diverse deployments. One site, for example, was a cluster of three hotels in Raleigh. Instead of using a separate Internet connection for each property, Summit used a Cisco Aironet 1400 Series Wireless Bridge to distribute a single Internet connection to all three hotels.
"The properties are very close together, so we found we could consolidate the Internet fees into one charge, and use Cisco's building-to-building wireless to distribute access to the other two buildings," says Livesay. "If you consider that a good high-speed Internet connection costs $400 to $500 per property, they're saving as much as a thousand dollars a month. The wireless solution will pay for itself in less than a year, and after that, it's all cost savings."
At two of Summit's properties, including the historic Dunhill Hotel in Charlotte, it was just not feasible to wire guest rooms for Ethernet. Instead, the company simply extended wireless access throughout the entire property with Cisco Aironet APs. Guests who don't have laptops with wireless clients are given a wireless Ethernet bridge at the front desk. The solution proved effective, affordable, and very easy to deploy.
"We had zero problems deploying this solution," says John Cunningham, general manager of the Summit's Dunhill Hotel in Charlotte. "It was the smoothest rollout of any guest service we've ever provided here."
Results
Today, Summit Hospitality delivers high-speed Internet access to guest rooms and public spaces at seven properties, with the rest scheduled for roll-out by the end of first quarter 2004. In just the first few months since deploying the Cisco solution, the company has realized substantial benefits, and high-speed Internet access has already become an integral part of the services Summit offers to its guests.
"At one of our hotels in Raleigh, we're seeing phenomenal usage," says Wright. "Almost 50 percent of the hotel gets on the Internet every night. Obviously we're providing something that our guests really needed."
Summit is now able to attract more customers and compete for business that was previously out of reach. "We've been able to expand our contracts enormously," says Wright. "Many companies have started to require high-speed access for their traveling employees, and now we can bid for their business, whereas before they would have gone elsewhere."
The extraordinary manageability of the Cisco BBSM and other Cisco solution components is enabling Summit's IT team to easily provision the entire multi-site solution themselves.
"The beauty of the Cisco solution is that it enables us to manage bandwidth and users, and allows virtually any type of user to get connected immediately and easily," says Wright. "I don't have to worry about the guest's IP address or configuration, and I don't have to worry about calls to the front desk every time a new user logs on. It just works."
"Some guests recently told me how pleased they were with the VPN functionality we offer," adds Jared Reed, general manager for Summit's Fairfield Inn in Raleigh.
"They said they were able to connect with their corporate office more easily than any other hotel service they had used."
Summit's IT staff is also confident that the combined security features of the Cisco wireless APs, BBSM, and PIX Security Appliance enables them to offer the highest level of protection for the management company and its guests.
"In our first week, we had someone try to hack into our system," says Wright. "The system just nailed them. It detected the intruder immediately, deleted the account, and prevented the user from logging back on."
An Integrated Networking Solution
Working with Cisco, Summit was able to adopt a complete solution—including switching, security, wireless networking, and management services—from a single vendor, that can be administered through a single operating system and management interface.
"Other high-speed Internet solutions out there use a gateway from one company, switches from another, APs from another, kind of a hodge-podge," says Livesay. "It's a real problem in terms of manageability and interoperability."
Summit's single-vendor solution also enables the company to work exclusively with Cisco's award-winning Services & Support Group when issues arise. "Using Cisco for the entire solution was very important to me," says Wright. "If we need to make changes or switch something out, it's very easy. And if we have an issue, we only need to call Cisco TAC [Technical Assistance Center], and we know they'll resolve it."
Next Steps
In the coming years, Summit's IT team plans to continue expanding and building on the Cisco IP network. One solution the team is exploring is an IP-based surveillance system. By tying security cameras and video storage to the high-speed IP network, the team will be able to manage security for all properties centrally.
The company is also exploring the potential for delivering management training classes and videos over the network, and in the long-term, deploying in-room IP phones and VoD services. By investing in a robust, scalable Cisco solution, Wright knows that the network will support all of these applications.
"If it looks like our guests might want a certain application down the road, we want our network to be able to handle it," says Wright. "Whether it's IP Communications, video on demand, or other solutions, our infrastructure will allow us to deploy these technologies and manage them internally. There are lots of opportunities, and we're confident our network is ready for them."
This customer story is based on information provided by Summit Hospitality Group and describes how that particular organization benefits from the deployment of Cisco products. Many factors may have contributed to the results and benefits described; Cisco does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.
CISCO PROVIDES THIS PUBLICATION AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties, therefore this disclaimer may not apply to you.
"The Cisco solution enables virtually any type of user to get connected immediately and easily . I don't have to worry about calls to the front desk every time a new user logs on. It just works. "
—Greg Wright, Chief Information Officer, Summit Hospitality Group, Ltd.
Posted: Fri Mar 12 08:01:42 PST 2004
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