SecureVision Relies on Allied Telesis to Deliver Exceptional Digital Experience

SecureVision is a turnkey, fully-managed telecom and networking service provider catering to resort properties along the Gulf Coast of the United States. The company works closely with the builders and property managers of multi-family condominiums, gated communities, hotels, and similar projects. SecureVision has exclusive contracts to provide fiber connectivity and network-based services to more than 10,000 individual housing units in the resort properties.

As a design engineering firm, SecureVision’s business model is quite different from most MSPs who simply manage networking equipment owned by other entities. Instead, SecureVision buys and owns all the equipment that they install for the properties, and they earn recurring revenue from providing a full range of digital services that utilize that infrastructure. The services are generally around phone, internet, cable television, access control, closed circuit TV, and digital information displays.

To get a sense of what they do, think about booking a multi-bedroom condo unit on the sugar-white sand beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama for a vacation. A digital kiosk in the building lobby advertises the resort’s amenities. In the rental unit itself, there is cable television as well as a variety of streaming services, high speed wireless internet, and a concierge phone where guests can easily contact the front desk, order food service, schedule activities, and more. These are important services that guests take for granted—unless they don’t work.

SecureVision makes sure they do work with an extensive infrastructure that has been engineered for always-on access.

One Vendor to Provide Everything Needed

SecureVision has built a large-scale wide area network to support its numerous client properties spanning the U.S. coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico. The company partners with Allied Telesis for a full range of equipment, software, and technologies.

COO and VP of Operations Len Cody says his relationship with Allied Telesis predates his founding of SecureVision in 2006. “Earlier in my career, I worked on numerous government and public sector projects in which Allied Telesis provided the networking equipment and management software. I’ve worked with them for about 25 years now,” says Cody.

“When we started SecureVision, we had no legacy equipment so we could start new and do everything the way we wanted to do it. We chose to partner with Allied Telesis on the networking side because we were already subject matter experts and we could have one vendor provide everything, from the networking core on down to the access points in each housing unit, plus the management software,” says Cody.

Allied Telesis Switches Span the Entire Network

It starts in the resort housing units. Whether it’s new construction or a retrofit, each and every unit is fitted with high-speed fiber to the home using fiber transceivers. “We put an access point in where the fiber is to the unit, and then hardwire connections to devices like TVs to give the best performance for streaming services,” explains Cody. “Every unit also has wireless access to support guests’ mobile devices.”

In addition to serving guests’ digital needs, the network allows building managers to monitor and manage their sites remotely and understand the condition of the property. For example, closed-circuit TV provides security surveillance around the properties. There are also energy management solutions and water detection solutions to keep the housing units comfortable and safe.

A large resort property is going to have its own control room with distribution switches that serve the units’ access switches. Aggregation switches aggregate multiple building sites into one building, and then there are three core switches that manage the entire network. “So, we have the five levels of what we do with Allied Telesis equipment,” says Cody. “We use carrier-grade equipment, for the most part. We put dual power risers in the buildings and uninterruptible power supplies on everything, so we seldom have an outage.”

The core switches are distributed among various locations in the coastal region, with complete redundancy to ensure availability. The network can be routed through Dallas or Atlanta in the event of an outage, say, due to a hurricane. “The Allied Telesis equipment gives us the ability to shape and distribute the network core as needed,” explains Cody. “In addition, we’re building a hardened site 30 miles north of the coast to gain even more resiliency as we continue to grow the company.”

Cody says the first Allied Telesis switches they installed more than 16 years ago are still in service. “They are still running. I mean, that’s just crazy. How many electronic devices last that long?” The longevity of the devices allows the company to cascade the switches down the line when newer pieces are installed. “Allied Telesis has enabled us to take the first switches we ever bought and move them further out to the edge of our network. We do that as we upgrade to devices that can feed 10 gig to every unit. Today we can feed 100% of our units a gig service if they need it, but we are constantly improving our service with more capable equipment.”

Allied Telesis is “Second to None”

SecureVision is evaluating the Allied Telesis Autonomous Management Framework^TM Plus (AMF Plus) to manage all their equipment. AMF Plus is a sophisticated suite of management tools that provides a simplified and automated approach to network management. Features like centralized management, auto-backup, auto-upgrade, auto-provisioning, and auto-recovery enable plug-and-play networking and zero-touch management. “We are exploring how we can make AMF Plus work across our environment to save time and money,” says Cody.

“As for Allied Telesis equipment, their management systems, their professional services and support—it’s all second to none,” says Cody “We can call them anytime about an issue and they’re on it. I don’t think my people would even think about using another provider because they are subject matter experts on Allied Telesis equipment. They know intimately how to use and program the equipment and figure it out.”

Because SecureVision is so confident in its infrastructure, the company can offer a four-hour service level agreement, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. “We don’t have a single competitor that can match that,” Cody says.