Grupo Colón Gerena
Major Puerto Rican Food Service Company Connects 118 Restaurants to a High-Availability Secure Network
Download Case StudyOverview
Grupo Colón Gerena operates 118 restaurants across Puerto Rico. In addition, the group owns nine real estate companies and a construction firm. As a fast-growing organization, Grupo Colón Gerena recognized the need for robust networking and cybersecurity. Resiliency was also a key consideration given the devastating storms that affect the island.
The group has now converged networking and cybersecurity on the Fortinet Security Fabric, centered on Fortinet Secure SD-WAN that provides continuous connectivity to 120 locations. Grupo Colón Gerena also deployed 180 FortiAP access points as part of a secure networking infrastructure. The solution, which provides high-quality wireless access, traffic configuration capabilities, and enhanced security, is managed centrally through a single pane of glass. With Fortinet, Grupo Colón Gerena has built a highly available network that delivers the resiliency it needs to keep operations running, while dramatically reducing costs, and serving as a platform for new value-generating digital projects.
“The Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution enables us to interconnect all locations within a single, centrally managed network that operates seamlessly to provide uninterrupted connectivity.”
– Ramón Vázquez, Chief Technology Officer, Grupo Colón Gerena
Business Impact
Ensured that core services remain operational even during connectivity failures by deploying a highly available network
Gained stable connectivity to support new additional services in restaurants, such as self-service machines and drive-through
Achieved 70% savings in management and configuration time compared to the previous solution
Achieved annual savings of $180,000 by replacing MPLS links with an 18-month ROI
Related Stories
With help desk issues, half of our time may be spent isolating the trouble, and FortiSwitch will reduce that by about 80%. Moving to FortiSwitches is greatly enhancing our help desk support of Jersey Mike’s franchisees.”
- Scott Scherer, Chief Information Officer, Jersey Mike’s Franchise Systems Inc.
Fortinet Secure SD-WAN enables integrated security and simpler management to allow us to evaluate existing risks and gain better visibility into the applications and types of attacks in our data centers. This level of control over our environment was a big factor in choosing Fortinet Secure SD-WAN. We have embraced the Fortinet Security Fabric integrated approach to security and plan to implement additional Fortinet solutions across our restaurants.”
- Manoj Gupta, Assistant Vice President, IT Burger King, India
Everything lives on the network. Unlike with traditional POS systems, if the network goes down, our franchisees cannot do business. We are leveraging Fortinet secure networking to ensure the highest levels of availability.”
- Leon Davoyan, CTO, Dave’s Hot Chicken
