The Challenge
Mid-America Overseas Inc., a Global Transportation and logistics provider, was utilizing Cisco PIX firewalls and Microsoft proxy servers for web filtering at their global locations. The proxy server lacked the ability to filter traffic by content type, forcing IT staff at Mid-America Overseas, to unblock site individually. "Because we couldn't block sites by content type we had to block all websites and then manually allow sites that were acceptable. This became very time consuming as we had to contantly update our list of approved sites and track down new URLs for sites if they moved," said Michael Mierwinski CIO Mid-America Overseas.
Additionally, the Cisco PIX devices only provided network address translation and basic filtering. The device offered no intrusion protection above that of allowing services, ports and IP addresses access to their network.
The Requirements
Mid-America Overseas needed a solution that had the ability to block websites by content type and that would be easy for his team to use. Mierwinski explained, "I wanted to make sure my staff would be able to understand the new product immediately so there would be minimal impact to our end users."
The Solution
Mierwinski considered purchasing a Cisco ASA, but after viewing the product he determined it was too complex and the cost was much too high. Instead, he deployed an Astaro Security Gateway 120 or 220 at each of his branch locations, an Astaro Security Gateway 320 at the datacenter, and the Astaro Command Center to manage all of the appliances.
"I selected the Astaro Security Gatewaybecause they are integrated solutions. There is only one platform for all of our network security and web filtering. In addition, the built in reporting engine means there would be no need for a separate server or software solution to analyze log files for reporting," said Mierwinski.
Astaro's simple user interface also attracted him to the solution. Mierwinski continued: "All other GUIs pale in comparison to the Astaro's. This solution is truly easy to manage."
Success with Astaro
Since deploying the Astaro Security Gateways and the Astaro Command Center, employees at Mid-America Overseas have the ability to do their jobs more quickly. Because the IT department no longer had to spend time administering the web filtering they are now free to perform more tasks that help to drive revenue. Mierwinski specified, "With Astaro our manual intervention dropped by about 75%." Mierwinski was also impressed with the timely updates and upgrades offered by Astaro. He continued: "The updates offered by Astaro not only ensure that we are protected from the latest threats they require no downtime or additional personnel to complete, saving us even more resources."
The Astaro Security Gateway provides detailed traffic and packet statistics as well as reporting on employee Internet usage that was previously unavailbale with their old solutions. "The Internet usage reports aloow us to better understand how our employees are using the Internet. We are able to use this information to improve their productivity, by blocking site that are a distraction and granting access to sites that help them complete their job," said Mierwinski.
As an added bonus, Mierwinski was also able to use the Astaro Security Gateway and the Astaro Command Center to improve the organization's disaster receovery plan. "The Astaro Security Gateways and the Astaro Command Center cut down on the time required to re-route traffic from specific offices in the event of a weather related or other telecom emergency."
