Earls Court and Olympia Venues, London 2006
High Speed Cisco Core Backbone with embedded security
The Challenge: EC&O Venues operated two disparate data networks that were providing different services to the business. One network was supporting the internal infrastructure requirement, the other was providing network services to exhibitors during shows. The two networks were totally separate and were built from two different vendor’s equipment. As a result management overheads were high, with two different IT teams being responsible for the operation of both environments. In addition, the show exhibition network suffered from frequent outages caused by exhibitors connecting virus infected IT equipment to the edge network. These machines would cause frequent Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on the infrastructure causing it to fail, until the source of the issue could be identified which was typically a manual process.
The company approached Nettitude with a view to solving two key business problems. Firstly to provide an integrated network solution that would reduce the ongoing management costs by establishing a single entity to manage and operate. Secondly to reduce the number and frequency of outages by placing intelligence into the network fabric to isolate and remediate virus related issues as they occur.
The Solution: Nettitude, in conjunction with Cisco Systems, designed an integrated high speed core network based on Cisco Catalyst 6500 Multilayer switches. These switches were configured to operate totally resiliently at both layer 2 and layer 3 with no single points of failure. The layer 3 support was partitioned and isolated between show and internal networks with no communications allowed between them. High speed firewalls were also deployed to provide controlled layer 3 access for management purposes.
The Catalyst 6500s were configured with inbuilt hardware based rate limiting policies. These allowed the switches to automatically rate limit malicious traffic to stop it from performing Denial of Service attacks upon the infrastructure. At the edge of the network, Cisco Catalyst 2950s and 2960s replaced the plethora of different switch types that were currently deployed. Cisco enhancements to layer 2 switching were implemented, alerting the IT team immediately that an exhibitor plugged a device into the network that contravened the show policies through a central management console. The exhibitors network connection would immediately be terminated and would require re-activation by the IT support team once the issue had been addressed.
The Benefits: The results were dramatic. A frequently failing environment has been replaced with an infrastructure that provides high performance LAN services operating at five nines availability. Outages suffered during exhibitions are becoming a distant memory. The IT support teams have been merged allowing them to focus on one core technology set and provide more pro-active support and management of the environment.
Earls Court & Olympia Profile: EC&O Venues plays host to hundreds of consumer shows, trade exhibitions, conferences, special events, concerts, award ceremonies, product launches and gala dinners each year. The three venues have welcomed the world’s biggest stars, the best known brands, the most popular sports, the largest companies, the cutting edge of fashion and the A-list of party people. Earls Court, which opened in 1937, is the home of events such as the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show, the Great British Beer Festival, the BRIT Awards and concerts from headline acts such as George Michael. Olympia, which opened in 1886, is also in West London and hosts high profile events such as the London International Horse Show, Erotica and the Metro Ski and Snowboard Show.
The Brewery, in the City of London, is the most recent addition to the EC&O Venues portfolio, acquired in September 2005. Opened in 1752 as part of the Whitbread breweries, it is now a renowned conference, events and party venue right in the centre of London. EC&O Venues has a reputation for hosting high quality events, delivering outstanding customer service and a commitment to bringing an entrepreneurial style to everything it does. Led by a strong management team, the company’s ethos of customer service is found among all its employees and service providers, so customers and visitors are assured of the same high standard of service from the moment they walk through the door.