Show-Jumping Event Gallops to Success with WatchGuard
Jumping de Chantilly was founded in 2001, flourishing year after year to become an essential stop on the French show jumping circuit and, with the arrival of the celebrated Global Champions Tour in 2010, is now a highlight on the international show jumping calendar. This 2016 event, which ran from May 26 through May 29, brought together some of the discipline’s best riders from 20 countries.
Challenge
Given the event’s growing popularity among competitors, the public, and the world press, Gérard Manzinali, president of Jumping de Chantilly, felt that updating their network infrastructure was critical to the ongoing success of the event. The existing legacy solution no longer met the requirements of a world-class tournament in terms of reliability and overall performance, but was nonetheless very costly.
A list of requirements was drafted for a new solution, with particular focus on security first and foremost, but also reliable, lightning-fast performance to enable video streaming on 70 TV channels across the world. The new solution would need to cover a surface area of several acres, including two show-jumping arenas and stables for up to 600 horses. Additionally, it would have to provide high-performing, uninterrupted, and secure Internet access over 4 days for 1,500 daily users, segmented into several categories: the event staff, the judging panel, television crews, journalists, exhibitors, sponsors, caterers and – of course – the spectators.
During the Fall of 2015, after looking at options from several potential vendors, the event staff at Jumping de Chantilly decided that WatchGuard was the only solution that would meet all areas of concern.
Solution
The new infrastructure was based on two high-speed internet connections: one SDSL link at 4 Mbps, and a fibre optic link at 10 Mbps. Both links were connected to WatchGuard’s Firebox® M300, itself connected to 10 WatchGuard AP102 wireless access points, extending Wi-Fi access throughout the entire tournament, including the event headquarters, the judging panel, the VIP restaurant, the VIP lounge, the press room and the stables. To counter the risk of oversaturation and ensure the smooth transit of all wireless traffic, the ten access points were connected to the Firebox M300 via fibre optic links.
To isolate the different user categories and, most importantly, to enable the secure use of the wireless payment card terminals, eleven distinct SSIDs corresponding to eleven VLANS would be configured on the network via the Firebox appliance. Dimension, WatchGuard’s cloud-based network visibility and management platform, was also enabled to provide granular insight into all wired and wireless network use.
Results
Jumping de Chantilly staff were happy to report that the WatchGuard Firebox M300 and ten AP102 wireless access points performed flawlessly over the four-day event, providing secure, reliable access for everyone involved. Though the available bandwidth was used to full capacity for much of the tournament, equestrian TV channel Equidia Live – the event’s main sponsor – was successfully able to cover the full range of competitions without incident, streaming video through 70 channels across the world. Additionally, WatchGuard Dimension provided an accurate, hour-by-hour view of all network traffic and the resulting patterns – data that will be critical in configuring the network for next year’s event.