"We have three times the amount of firewalls than seven or eight years ago," says Andrew McCullough, lead infrastructure architect in the information security and compliance department at Motel 6.

Firewalls used to be assigned mainly to the perimeter of the network, but over time Motel 6 has been building up defenses internally to protect against attacks on Web and databases, plus conforming to Payment Card Industry rules to protect cardholder data. That has meant more firewalls that can handle higher bandwidth, and Motel 6 uses the Crossbeam X-Series platform, which can also support intrusion-prevention systems and antivirus filtering.

BACKGROUND:

About eight years ago, advocacy group Jericho Forum gained considerable attention as IT professionals at enterprises and government who were associated with it about the network firewall as a barrier to e-commerce around the globe. Some advocated phasing out network firewalls altogether while pushing vendors to come up with alternatives, especially cloud-based security.

McCullough says network firewalls have at times been an impediment to e-commerce. Back in 2006, as online booking of hotel rooms had become a very important means to keep customers coming to the hotel chain, Motel 6 faced "significant issues" because even new firewalls the company had put in were interfering with the smooth flow of booking rooms through the central reservation system in the volumes that were seen online.