Case 2

Hotel
Hungaria

With hugely successful productions like Dagelijkse kost, Huis Gemaakt, Onze Natuur, Hoodie and Olly Wannabe, Hotel Hungaria has solidified its reputation as one of the country’s leading media and marketing houses. Yet Hotel Hungaria is making quite a mark with their security approach as well. Olivier Struyven, CTO and head of Post Production, explains why Hotel Hungaria decided to embark on a proactive security trajectory based on the American Motion Picture Association’s Trusted Partner Network (TPN). In addition to being Hotel Hungaria’s general IT partner, GoCreate is helping out with this particular project. Olivier: “Thanks to their support, we don’t need our own IT department. GoCreate continually explores our optimisation options just like an in-house IT professional would do.”

From fiber network to firewall

The partnership dates back to 2011, when GoCreate helped Hotel Hungaria install a 10G fiber network. This job marked the start of a long and fruitful collaboration, with a lot of successfully completed projects, including a mail server, a data server, firewalling, internet access and active directory in terms of both hardware and software (from server supply to configuration).

Today, GoCreate is still Hotel Hungaria’s preferred supplier for all of these services. The collaboration even expands year after year: GoCreate takes care of Hotel Hungaria’s LTO services, the entire data and video network – both the 10G network and the office network – WiFi, firewalls and servers. “Thanks to GoCreate, our network is operational at all times. The monitoring systems and scheduled updates keep our network safe, and that gives us peace of mind,” according to Olivier.

Specialised knowledge and experience

Olivier especially appreciates GoCreate’s extensive knowledge of, and experience with, video networking: “Combining a video networkwith a standard network is often a recipe for trouble, but we’ve never experienced any issues ourselves. The strength of GoCreate lies in the fact that they manage to strike the right balance between servers and workstations in high-bandwidth environments, and that they make sure users have the access they need to get their jobs done with no fuss at all.” 

In addition, GoCreate guides Hotel Hungaria through the ongoing IT evolution. “Starting from a perfect understanding of the minimum requirements, they propose a solution that works, and that keeps working.””

TPN audit

Proactive attitude

In 2021, Hotel Hungaria and GoCreate embarked on a security audit, based on the guidelines of the Motion Picture Association’s Trusted Partner Network. The TPN benchmarks are, in turn, based on ISO 27000, a set of information security management standards. It was a proactive decision on Hotel Hungaria’s part, because the majority of the Belgian media industry does not work with the TPN standard yet, adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude instead – one that may cause problems when, for instance, Netflix wants a job done and the TPN guidelines have to be met overnight. Hotel Hungaria invests in security for their customers and their content with a step-by-step improvement and future-proofing of their security posture.

Expanding the range

The security project kicked off with an audit
and a gap analysis, resulting in an extensive checklist. Currently, GoCreate is looking into everything concerning digital security for Hotel Hungaria: from password policies to firewalls. Olivier: “We work in sprints and with interim evaluations, after which we determine the focal points for the upcoming period.” In the medium term, for instance, camera security and badge access control will be tackled, with the range of security coverage gradually expanding in the long term, with the help of dedicated partners.

“We get excellent support from GoCreate,” Olivier feels. “Dietrich and his team point us in the right direction, making sure that we will continue to work safely and remain compliant with the TPN requirements. They really help secure our day to day work.” The GoCreate experts are regularly on site at Hotel Hungaria, fixing problems on the spot. “This means that GoCreate is so much more than a supplier that we call on from time to time,” the CTO and head of Post Production at Hotel Hungaria concludes. “We really are partners.”