“SD-WAN has helped us improve our uptime to 99.7%”

The trick of making a good burger is not just the ingredients you put in, but how you stack them. No wonder then, Burger King India, a franchisee of the US-based Burger King Corporation, recently implemented Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) to nail high-performance networking capabilities that streamline operations, increase business agility, and bolster security across their data centre and restaurant locations.

Incidentally, India is the 100th country where Burger King opened a restaurant, and it marks a footprint of over 330 locations throughout the country. A recent report from investment banking firm Kennis Ventures Private Limited highlights that it is on the heels of the leading brand McDonald’s in the top burger chain in India. This sprawling business and the competitive field make it crucial for its internal network to work well for fast transactions, store visibility, secure guest Wi-Fi connectivity, and application availability. Wiping away latency or failure as a digital business enabler becomes as central as the softness of the bun in a burger.

So, would SD-WAN be the right ingredient in this stack that makes a complete burger? What issues and pickles would have to be handled here? Manoj Gupta, Associate Vice President – IT, Burger King India replies in detail about the secret dip that makes it all come together in an interaction with Pratima Harigunani. Excerpts:

Tell us about the recent SD-WAN rollout and what triggered this decision.

Burger King has 330 restaurants spread across India, some of which are in tier 3 and 4 cities. An end-to-end online Burger King experience for millennials has defined the brand over the years. As a customer-centric strategy, user experience and resilient network connectivity to enhance business uptime drove us to look at refreshing our networking and security technologies.

The business was getting affected because of unreliable local Internet connectivity in locations like malls or other remote areas. Security became a major concern, as we had to depend on the service provider for secure connectivity, which was not adequate. Considering better uptime and network security, we sought a solution that could provide centralised network control, visibility and better performance.

What made you choose SDN?

We looked at SD-WAN to connect our widely dispersed restaurants securely and cost-effectively. It became essential, for providing fast and secure access between the Burger King restaurant locations and our datacentre.

A key benefit of SD-WAN solutions is that it provides seamless packet transfers between multiple links and gives us uninterrupted connections.

A key benefit of SD-WAN solutions is that it provides seamless packet transfers between multiple links and gives us uninterrupted connections. WAN link remediation automatically chooses the best connectivity to provide better application performance and user experience. With security-driven networking, we can increase visibility, apply control, and access policies across the network, all from a single pane of management.

Is SDN a better option than existing network infra? What made you choose SDN over NFV?

SD-WAN technology is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and provide greater flexibility. With an integrated approach to secure SD-WAN, businesses can gain all the benefits of agility, without sacrificing security.

As networks continue to evolve, one concept will remain true: users and devices will need fast, accurate, reliable, and secure access to critical applications and resources. Whether deployed on-premise, in the cloud, as a cloud-based service, or even as part of a larger solution, it will continue to securely connect users, devices, and networks with critical applications and resources regardless of where they are deployed.

Would you be considering Intent-based Networking (IBN) as well?

The goals of SDN and IBN are the same, though the approach might be different. IBN is in its nascent stages and will evolve as a technology further. We are seeing the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in security with automated threat response and remediation. Automation with IBN will similarly help on the networking side and will make the network business-centric rather than device-centric.

Yes, given a choice if we have to do it, maybe in the next few years we will surely think about implementing IBN to reduce manual tasking, faster resolution of networking issues, better security, and more.

How crucial are latency reduction and application availability for your business?

Digital Transformation is changing how Burger King is delivering value to customers whether in-store or online. A major portion of our business runs online, and this includes mobile aggregators. Such latency in the network or connectivity issues directly affects our sales and has an impact on our business and customer retention.

The restaurants require reliable network connectivity to overcome latency or connectivity failure. Application availability for both in-store and online orders is critical to enhancing customer experience since we rely heavily on the internal network to process transactions, transmit, and store customer data.

Have you started witnessing any benefits already? What big results do you expect from this deployment?

SD-WAN can be configured to prioritise business-critical traffic and steer it over the most efficient route. Having multiple options for moving traffic helps reduce packet loss from overloaded circuits and latency due to heavy traffic, improving performance and user experience. The solution has helped us to improve our uptime from 98.5 to 99.7%, which makes a huge difference in sales from a business standpoint.

We have achieved higher bandwidth with lower WAN cost while improving in-store Internet availability and addressing connectivity challenges across all restaurants. With centralised management and reporting through FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, Burger King India has drastically improved visibility and security with next-generation firewall capabilities. Our security-driven networking approach simplifies deployment and connectivity and helps the restaurant chain achieve a resilient infrastructure with a security incident response strategy in place for future risks.

What about the challenges? What has been the learning from the rollout?

One of the most important aspects when making the move to SD-WAN is the focus on the networking and business benefits without paying much attention to the security implications. This lack of foresight is compounded by the fact that most SD-WAN solutions offer little more than a basic firewall and VPN functionality, which then presents a significant challenge for those teams now responsible for securing this technology. The inherent security issues of a dynamic WAN environment typically lead organisations to try and deploy overlay solutions that are not only very expensive but also add more complexity and limit visibility for security teams. Additionally, by relying on individual, isolated security tools, organisations struggle to gain granular control across the entire network, opening the door to security gaps.

Digital transformation to enhance customer loyalty, drive repeat business and improve growth, is a critical business factor for Burger King.

With the right SD-WAN solution organisations can support their digital transformation goals while continuing to ensure business continuity, even when faced with limited IT staff and infrastructure resources. Centralised management and zero-touch deployments allow for faster configuration rollouts at scale, enabling the best possible performance of applications even when being delivered to a large group of remote users. It can shorten deployment times by securely connecting remote locations with Zero Touch deployment, even without the availability of technical resources. Branches can be up and running with plug-and-play connectivity as the device can be managed centrally from the head office.

Any issues that you have confronted or foresee as the flip side of SDN?

Approximately 85% of network traffic is encrypted. Inspecting this traffic to ensure it does not include malware or other malicious content requires massive amounts of processing power that most SD-WAN solutions (and most firewalls) cannot handle. To defend networks against cybercriminals who hide malware in VPN traffic to infiltrate networks, or hide data being exfiltrated, we should look for a solution that features built-in encrypted traffic inspection capabilities that can operate at the speed of the applications and connections being used. Also, when you don’t have a security strategy for your SD-WAN solution you will find it difficult to ensure consistent policy enforcement across interconnected ecosystems by relying on an overlay solution.

What about the Whooper Wi-Fi? How does it help the business?

Burger King customers are mostly millennials and the Whooper Wi-Fi is about improving their in-store experience. Most of our guests carry smartphones and the Whooper Wi-Fi makes their time within the store more enjoyable. Our customers have a ‘mobile on-the-go lifestyle and our Wi-Fi allows access to quality connectivity and digital experience which is garnering an overwhelming response. We have started the service in a few flagship outlets.

What else is happening on your IT side? Any exciting examples from the last 2-3 years? What have you planned next?

The company identified four pillars to target with our new digital strategy: increased visibility, improved control, automated IT workflows, and most importantly, increased security.

In a bid to improve internal data security, Burger King structured the project with these carefully mapped-out pillars based on existing challenges and the IT department’s goals. The company was also mindful of the stakeholders involved, including employees and customers. After implementing the project, these four pillars have been addressed thoroughly. All results are well-aligned with the company’s focus on achieving a centralised management infrastructure to create resilience between restaurants and data centres. This has straight away resulted in improved internal customer satisfaction scores. All restaurant-level devices can be traced and monitored centrally.

Digital innovation is an ongoing effort at Burger King, and you will see new technology platforms in our restaurants that will make them an enjoyable experience zone for our customers.

By Pratima Harigunani

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in