When the line drops, guests still check in.
Client name withheld.A hotel group with five properties- Hospitality
- C · What happens when things change?
One internet line per property, carrying everything.
A second route that takes over on its own.
Guest Wi-Fi on the same network as the card terminals.
Payments on a network no guest can reach.
A continuity plan nobody had tried.
A plan the front desk has rehearsed.
Context
Every stay depends on a connection: the booking system in the cloud, the card terminals at reception, the door keys, the guest Wi-Fi. At each property, all of them travelled over a single line.
The problem
- If a property’s line failed, check-in, payments and new keys stopped with it.
- Guests’ devices shared a network with the systems that take card payments.
- The continuity plan lived in a folder, and had never been used.
05.1What we did
The work, service by service.
- Network & cloudA second route, and walls between networksA second connection at every property, on a different path, with automatic failover. Payments, operations and guests each on a network of their own.
- Monitoring & responseBoth lines watchedEvery link monitored, with an alert to a named person the moment a property fails over, so the main line is fixed before anyone asks.
- Compliance & resilienceRehearsed with the front deskThe continuity plan rewritten for the people who would use it, and rehearsed at each property. Card payment systems kept to the smallest scope PCI DSS allows.
05.2Under the hood
The route it runs along.
- 01Front desk
- 02Main line
- 03Backup route
- 04Booking system
05.3What changed
What is different now.
- When a line fails, guests keep checking in and paying.
- A guest’s phone can’t see the systems that take payments.
- The continuity plan has been used, by the people who would use it.