16 September 2016

Established as a nightclub in 1991, the Ministry of Sound (MoS) has since diversified into a multimedia entertainment business that includes an independent record label, worldwide events brand, a radio station, and other media outlets.

With the organisation’s employees and partners now leveraging cloud-based services for business processes, the need for improved connectivity speeds, bandwidth and security became a necessity. MoS therefore needed to move to a faster platform. At the same time, it wanted to take advantage of the latest advancements in switching technology which is where networking specialist ZyXEL came in.

MoS has been working with ZyXEL for 10 years now, and had already been using the vendor’s switches in its core network as well as at the edge. These were managed individually. ZyXEL therefore created a centralised management console, the MM7201 switch, to connect all of the edge switches together, while allowing the main office to run off its own LAN and the nightclub to run off another. 

With the same edge switches now across both networks – 10 GS2210s in the office and five in the club – the two networks were able to run separate from one another with greater bandwidth. 

Centralised management of all switches has increased capacity from 100MB to 1GB, enabling employees to more easily share files and emails via the cloud without the network going down or suffering from lag. Centralised management also means the switches can be more easily controlled if quick changes need to be made.

In addition, ZyXEL used XS1920-12 copper 10G switches to create a storage network. This gave MoS a cost-effective way to expand and deploy its storage solution, allowing the company to cope with new demand in complex lighting and sound equipment control, as well as the production and storage of media rich content. 

With so much data now stored in the cloud, network security was also a big issue that needed addressing. However, ZyXEL says the GS2210s provide new features, such as port isolation, which help improve the way the networks are secured, and also make it easier to troubleshoot any problems.  

The new network has also boosted MoS’ business continuity and disaster recovery capability. Previously, with on premise servers, an external team would have to be called on-site to deal with a major outage. Having moved its data to the cloud, MoS can now solve such issues with the flick of a switch.