Hooters Restaurants Significantly Reduces Network Downtime for 400+ Locations

Hooters of America, Inc., the franchisor and operator of Hooters restaurants, has strengthened its data center bandwidth capabilities by upgrading to Radware's latest next-generation application delivery controller (ADC), AppDirector running on the On Demand Switch (ODS) platform, and its multi-WAN load balancer, LinkProof. By deploying both solutions, Hooters has gained greater network efficiency for its corporate operations and business applications.

A globally recognized brand with more than 400 locations, it was critical for Hooters to have powerful, secure solutions in place for its ISP and web farm connections. In order to satisfy the needs of a vast corporate web site and applications network, which registers 250,000 visits per week, Hooters enlisted the help of Radware's AppDirector and LinkProof products to provide bandwidth management and redundancy that was necessary to support the data center with assurances against network downtime. The combination of both solutions resulted in the removal of any single point of failure, and continues to allow for superior business continuity for the company. Õ Õ

"In order to prevent against disruptive network outages, we needed to find an ideal way for our Web and application servers to enjoy redundancy, as well as give us a much needed maintenance window where we could take a server offline without interrupting service," says Ryan Pierce, network administrator, Hooters of America, Inc. "As a long time Radware customer, we've been very satisfied with the performance and capabilities of their solutions in keeping our network downtime to an absolute minimum."

Operating an enterprise-class point-of-sale system, which governs all aspects of the restaurant's control and payment processing, Hooters looked to Radware to operate three web farms via the upgraded AppDirector devices and load balance three ISP's across the LinkProof devices for bandwidth management and redundancy.

By leveraging Radware's comprehensive AppDirector on ODS, Hooters has increased SSL acceleration and improved scalability for faster delivery of applications over its IP network. AppDirector uses Layer 4-7 intelligence for optimized server performance, and is powered by Radware's OnDemand Switch platform, which provides a "pay-as-you-grow" cost model that guarantees short-term and long-term savings on CAPEX and OPEX.

Hooters deployment of Radware's LinkProof provides uninterrupted network experiences achieved through bypassing network bottlenecks. This allows network administrators to easily manage the multiple ISP links the company operates, which enables them to quickly react and avoid potential network issues during peak and non-peak hours of traffic.

AppDirector and LinkProof solutions are integrated components of the Radware's Business-Smart Data Center strategy, which is based on an approach to offer a range of innovative capabilities inclusive of pay-as-you-grow procurement models and a series of compelling 'on demand' platforms.