Pictured: Karen O’Connor, Datapac, Andrew Prior, Druids Glen and Suzanne Brady, Datapac.

Druid’s Glen hotel saves €4,000 a year with Sophos UTM and ‘self-manage’ the solution.

Druid’s Glen, a luxury hotel in Ireland, saves €4,000 a year by utilising Sophos UTM, and finds the solution simple to self-manage. Druid’s Glen was using a number of point solutions for antivirus, wireless and firewalls from different providers. Datapac, a Sophos partner, supports the IT infrastructure at the hotel and suggested they consolidate their existing solutions to overcome inefficiencies in terms of cost and also ease of use.

The hotel was also aware that guests, both for business and leisure, would need increasing flexibility and reliability with the IT services when visiting the hotel. They recognised the paramount importance of this, when endeavouring to provide the best possible customer experience in the hotel industry. “Datapac advised me to consolidate the range of antivirus, wireless and firewall solutions and that this was possible using just one box from Sophos. This really appealed to me,” explains Andrew Prior, Director of Finance at Druids Glen. Sophos and Datapac delivered a fully integrated solution which provides improved protection against blended security threats. It also removes the cost and complexity of multiple-point solutions.

Datapac worked hard to make the switch happen – a task that with a Sophos competitor may have taken up to four days according to Andrew, but thanks to Sophos and Datapac took just one.

Andrew has found that Sophos UTM is ideal for the hospitality industry, by providing:

• guest conference access for business guests who need video conferencing
• antivirus protection
• prioritised VOIP for Skype users
• wireless hotspots for both business and leisure guests

“It’s fantastic, you have everything you need in one box, there is no need to learn many different things and it’s simple to use”, explains Andrew.  We can provide a great customer service and we have made significant cost savings.” Andrew also enthuses that the Sophos user guides combined with the simple user interface mean that he can easily and quickly follow the set-up instructions and carry out the work on his own. He is pleased to point out that it took just one and a half hours to set up the canteen wireless for staff groups using the help documents, saying “it was a dream”.

In addition, he now also feels that the hotel is better protected from threats and viruses, and downtime in general.

Andrew has seen big technical benefits in terms of:

• Data protection in line with EU guidelines
• Improved credit card transaction protection
• Separation and streamlining of traffic
• An all-in-one, easy-to-use solution
• User friendly help documents for self-management of the solution

This is not to mention the cost savings he has made which include €4,000 a year at this moment in time, and predicts will rise to €8,000 a year in three years’ time.

The end result is one that helps to provide an outstanding customer service to both business and leisure guests at the hotel, by removing barriers and restrictions and providing the flexibility required in tourism today. Says Andrew:

“It takes just ten minutes to set up a secure business meeting room now, and provide wireless from an iPad to a screen. This would not have been possible before Sophos UTM.”

Andrew will definitely continue to use Sophos in the future, saying “It’s fantastic, you have everything you need in one box, it’s simple to use and we have made significant cost savings.”