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Zscaler > Case Studies > Zscaler™ Secures AutoNation’s Drive to the Cloud: An IoT Case Study

Zscaler™ Secures AutoNation’s Drive to the Cloud: An IoT Case Study

Technology Category

Drones - Drone Payloads & Accessories
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Automotive
Retail

Applicable Functions

Maintenance
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Traffic Monitoring
Transportation Simulation

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Hardware Design & Engineering Services

The Challenge

AutoNation, America’s largest auto retailer, faced significant challenges in securing Internet-connected computer systems and IoT devices across its 360 locations. The company needed centralized controls for managing Internet security policies, monitoring and responding to threats, and ensuring reliable Internet access for employees. The challenge was to apply consistent and robust security across all retail and corporate locations. Each location’s network includes an Internet point of presence and a direct connection to AutoNation’s data center. The company also had to accommodate the slightly different connectivity requirements of the more than 30 car manufacturers it supports, especially concerning Internet-connected vehicle diagnostic systems. Routing all Internet traffic through the company’s data center was too inefficient and costly, and deploying Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices to each store was also unfavorable due to the increased cost of hardware, implementation, and maintenance.

About The Customer

AutoNation is America’s largest auto retailer and a Fortune 500 company. Founded in 1996, it has over 10 million customers and counting. AutoNation owns and operates over 360 new and used car franchises throughout the U.S. and has more than 26,000 employees. The company supports more than 30 car manufacturers, each with slightly different requirements regarding connectivity, especially concerning Internet-connected vehicle diagnostic systems. AutoNation's business is rapidly expanding, and it needed a solution to secure its Internet-connected computer systems and IoT devices across its widely distributed locations.

The Solution

AutoNation turned to a cloud-based Internet security solution, Zscaler, to provide the Internet accessibility needed for retail business, while ensuring strong standardized security controls across all locations. Zscaler allows AutoNation to protect and control Internet-bound traffic and reduce the retail store technology footprint. Different policies can be applied for various needs in the retail location, all managed from a central administrative console. AutoNation began rolling out Zscaler platform services across the country, forwarding all its end-user Internet-bound traffic to the Zscaler cloud via GRE tunneling. The rollout was uncomplicated, with initial capabilities rolled out in two to three months, and the platform fully deployed in less than a year. Administration costs were slashed as there was no need to manage and maintain hardware, and capital expenses were replaced by the simple, predictable subscription cost of the Zscaler service.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Zscaler provided AutoNation with centralized management and reporting functions with one integrated dashboard. The company began seeing the value of Zscaler immediately upon deployment, gaining visibility into the ineffectiveness of their antivirus solution. Zscaler was able to block command-and-control traffic from a system in their environment, allowing AutoNation to identify and rectify the issue. The company also discovered botnet issues and was able to clean them up quickly. Furthermore, AutoNation found a lot of P2P traffic going in and out of their network to clients they weren’t familiar with. Using Zscaler’s full packet inspection firewall, they were able to turn off that P2P traffic, stopping BitTorrent and other P2P file sharing services.

Quantitative Benefit

The Zscaler platform was fully deployed in less than a year.
Administration costs were significantly reduced as there was no need to manage and maintain hardware.
Capital expenses were replaced by the simple, predictable subscription cost of the Zscaler service.