Retail

ATU – a repair shop branch with 550 locations – requires an IT network with maximum security and flexibility as well as a sustainable reduction in operating costs along with highest stability and reliability. The goal: a state-of-the-art SD-WAN based on a cloud solution with georedundant data centers, flexible multi-tenancy capability, and automatic creation of network relationships.

Retailers want to combine the benefits of the physical shop with digital components such as electronic advertising spaces and price tags, omnichannel marketing, proprietary applications, buy-it-now functions in the online shop in case of non-availability in store, tracking, and much more. The basis for this is a high-performance and reliable Internet connection as well as a stable, full-coverage Wi-Fi.

The retailer wants to meet the requirements of its customers to realize a modern shopping experience. The implementation of digital price labels is intended to benefit not only from the visual appearance, but mainly from great time and cost savings. Digital price labels should only have to be attached once wirelessly and can be changed via radio individually and centrally at any time from the inventory management system. This wireless technology and the parallel Wi-Fi applications in the shop must not interfere with each other in any way.

In addition to offering a customer hotspot for free surfing, the retailer wants to offer personalized digital applications such as e.g. photo printing in drugstores, digital shopping lists in combination with the company‘s own app, or other personalized marketing opportunities. The required wireless guest network, which customers can dial into, must be securely separated from all other networks and guarantee stable and high-performance operation.

Whether Wi-Fi guest access, barcode connection to the resource planning system, monitoring measures, external display advertising campaigns, or payment by EC card and the associated connection of credit institutions – retailers want to run many applications on a single network infrastructure while strictly isolating data across logically separate networks. Security has the highest priority here: employees, customers, and externally connected service providers should only access the networks intended for them. Within the branch up to the external service provider, data paths must be maximally protected against access by unauthorized persons.