VP, Hybrid Cloud Practice
INDUSTRY: Gambling & Casino
COMPANY SIZE: 13,000 Employees
HEADQUARTERS: Uncasville, CT
Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) is a master developer and operator of premier global integrated entertainment resorts. MGE was simply looking for “A Better Way” to operate. MGE was driven to continue developing its current locations while finding innovative ways to bring efficiency to its infrastructure. However, simple infrastructure management and configuration tasks are the most complex ones, requiring the most time and distracting their team members from strategic new technologies. Axcelinno partnered with Red Hat to leverage the power and flexibility of infrastructure-as-code methodologies and platforms to standardize the configuration and enforce compliance of the MGE infrastructure.
Key Results
- Automated complex network and server configuration changes while reducing deployment time from weeks to hours.
- Streamlined CI/CD process by adding infrastructure automation to the build and release pipelines.
- Gained experience and guidance with Infrastructure as Code methodologies and best practices and the Red Hat Ansible Platform.
Services & Partner Ecosystem Technologies
- Axcelinno Rapid Start for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- Network Automation
- Server Automation
- Database Automation
Challenge
MGE is expanding into different landscapes both domestically and internationally. The gaming industry domestically is becoming less of a destination-based industry and becoming more regional-based gaming. Guests don’t have to travel as far to get the same gaming product. This changes the way MGE approaches technology to solve common problems. Key to MGE’s strategy to become a default choice for gaming patrons, they decided to improve their customer loyalty program. This created a critical time challenge, as each regional location took weeks to stand up their loyalty program infrastructure.
Due to the manual involvement required by the infrastructure-related tasks, adding a new property to the loyalty program previously required six FTEs two weeks to provision and configure load balancers, servers, and databases. The manual provisioning and configuration were delaying the project and time to market. MGE focused on finding a way to automate this process, but when COVID-19 hit, MGE decided to put the effort on hold.
However, Axcelinno understood the importance of the automation effort to MGE. Axcelinno was in constant communication with MGE and built a plan to facilitate the deployment of Ansible within the MGE environment.
Solution: Bringing Dynamism To The Cybersecurity Industry
Software
- Red Hat Ansible Platform
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat Satellite
- IBM AS400
- VMware
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Jenkins
MGE was looking at leveraging Ansible to automate manual tasks related to the S400 environment. MGE also sought Axcelinno’s guidance to assist in the setup and configuration of Ansible, following best practices to support their automation initiatives by implementing infrastructure-as-code using Ansible.
COVID-19 put the engagement at risk. However, Axcelinno’s commitment to MGE’s automation journey using Ansible and implementing the playbooks for MGE’s environment, and mentoring MGE’s team members remained the same. Axcelinno’s Red Hat Ansible Automation Rapid Start program allowed MGE to purchase the software, professional services for setup and playbook implementation using best practices, and training as a single package.
Results
In less than four weeks, Axcelinno stood up Ansible and had automated MGE’s the process involving networking infrastructure, AS400, VMWare, DNS/DHCP provisioning, databases, and software platforms. The Axcelinno team also used its unique mentoring model to provide hands-on training and coaching to the MGE team.
Axcelinno’s Rapid Start for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform reduced MGE’s time required to provision and configure the infrastructure to hours per location from weeks. Through a partnership with Axcelinno and Red Hat, MGE solved the common problem of doing more with less. With the introduction of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, MGE continues to provide a great customer experience while bringing efficiency to its infrastructure.
About Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment
Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment is a master developer and operator of premier global integrated entertainment resorts, including Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, Inspire in Incheon, South Korea, and Niagara Casinos in Niagara, Canada. MGE is the owner, developer, and manager of integrated entertainment resorts throughout the United States as well as Northern Asia, Niagara Falls, Canada, and Las Vegas, Nevada.