New LodgeNet Partnership to Manage 1,300 Hotel Networks

Ipswitch Inc.'s Network Management Division, developer of the WhatsUp Gold suite of innovative IT management solutions, announced that LodgeNet Interactive Corporation, a provider of media and connectivity solutions to the hospitality industry, has selected WhatsUp Gold to manage a network that spans 20,000 devices in 1,300 hotels across the United States and Canada. Ipswitch's solution promises to provide network reliability and guest service while reducing operational costs and enabling easy deployment of new technologies.

The solution, which includes both WhatsUp Gold and WhatsConnected, a layer two and layer three network discovery plug-in, enables LodgeNet to quickly poll and discover tens of thousands of devices and hundreds of thousands of network interfaces across its continent-wide network. Using the WhatsConnected plug-in, LodgeNet was able to verify that each hotel deployed its network according to company specifications.

WhatsUp Gold also allows LodgeNet customer service representatives to immediately check and take action on network-related inquiries from a remote location, so they can quickly respond to technical questions from guests or hotel managers. WhatsUp Gold also enables proactive support to prevent network problems before they occur, allowing LodgeNet to contact hotels to offer preventive maintenance. Over a recent five-month period, 97% of 1,500 network anomalies were fixed before the customer called with a problem.

The high network reliability from WhatsUp Gold also enables LodgeNet to implement new technologies so that hotels can offer their guests leading-edge communications and entertainment such as HDTV, streaming Video on Demand and Voice-over-IP.