South Bay BMW Builds Ultimate Dealership Network

South Bay BMW needed to guard its network and mission-critical applications against service-affecting fiber cuts and virus outbreaks. By choosing a secure, high-availability network from Cisco, South Bay BMW was able to build the ultimate dealership network.

When Hitchcock Automotive relocated its South Bay BMW dealership to accommodate a growing customer base, it moved into the ultimate sales and service facility in Torrance, California. From the beginning, the new facility was designed to be the flagship store for Hitchcock Automotive, including more than 110,000 square feet and 80 enclosed service bays. Hitchcock’s corporate headquarters is connected to six dealerships, including South Bay BMW, and the company employs 600 employees who rely on its network.

Rich Morris, vice president of information systems, is solely responsible for the company’s networking capabilities. Hitchcock Automotive already had a network from Cisco Systems® and the new South Bay BMW location offered a clean slate for implementing the most current networking features and capabilities.

“My primary concern is application availability,” says Morris. “If the network goes down, I have 150 employees at the South Bay BMW dealership who are unable to be productive. For example, if we spend $50,000 to run a weekend promotion and our main application is down, we will lose significant amounts of money.” When it was time to build the network for the new facility, Morris insisted that the dealership build in maximum resiliency.

In the past, the most common cause of network downtime was a fiber cut to the local service provider’s T1 links. A severed line eliminated the dealership’s WAN connection to headquarters and access to its main productivity application. In addition, Ethernet lines strung between multiple buildings made it difficult to create a high-availability, secure LAN. This made the local network susceptible to virus, worm, and spyware attacks, which slowed network performance. Furthermore, viruses and worms that entered the network were able to replicate and spread, making the entire corporate network vulnerable. Morris would often need to hire as many as 12 people to patch 150 systems every time new system patches and security updates became available—as frequently as once or twice a month, costing $5000–6000 each time.