Firewall Prevents Loss Of Sales In Hurricanes

Cannon Automotive Group has been serving customers in Lakeland, FL for more than 40 years. With 75 employees and three franchises that add up to sales of 1,200 new and used cars annually, the dealership remains busy.

Accessing customer information and tracking contracts are essential to the success of the Cannon dealership. For that, Cannon relies on ARKONA's Web-based dealer management solution (DMS), which automates all aspects of the dealership. Business ran smoothly until early 2004, when a T-1 failure occurred when road construction cut a line. The resulting loss of business convinced Terry, Rick, and Danny Cannon, brothers and owners of the business, that they needed a reliable failover device with security encryption to keep their DMS up and running.

Encrypted VPN Keeps Customer Records Secure
Accessing and processing customer information is essential to maintaining profitability. Security is also important, since data is accessed and transported over the Internet. With the guidance of their network integrator, Diversicom, Cannon purchased the CyberGuard SG570 firewall and came to depend on its two VPN (virtual private network) connections with triple DES (data encryption standard) encryption to ensure that its operations are not interrupted.

On August 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley reached the Florida peninsula as a Category 4 storm, causing $14 billion in property damage and leaving 2 million Floridians in the dark. Lakeland was affected with multiple power outages as the eye of Charley hit the area, followed just weeks later by hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.

While other local car dealerships were unable to operate following the hurricanes, Cannon Automotive conducted business as usual. Using the redundant Internet connection feature of the CyberGuard product, the dealer maintained its Internet connection with minimal disruption to daily operations. "With a reliable failover device, you don't have to sacrifice productivity," said Terry Cannon. Thanks to Diversicom's recommendation of the CyberGuard SG570, the hurricane weeks in Florida were productive and profitable for Cannon Automotive.