Protected Under Lock and Key
Challenge
As a leading manufacturer of steel commercial, security, and fire door systems, it’s safe to say that Sunray Engineering understands the value of security. Over the course of the last thirty years, Sunray Engineering has built a reputation for consistently delivering products that meet the safety and security demands of their clientele.
Sunray's previous network security solutions included Sonicwall firewalls that, plagued with intermittent performance issues, did not meet the high standards for quality and performance that the company expects. As John Bogle – IT Manager at Sunray Engineering – explained, “We had continual issues with our Sonicwall firewalls, whereby the only solution was to replace the firewall - that happened a few times. There were also issues with the web content filtering abilities - we couldn’t block the content that we wanted to.”
Sunray Engineering required a firewall that would not only safeguard their network from threats, but would also be trusted by the companies with whom they do business: a network security appliance that would mirror the quality that they themselves build into each and every one of their products. Reflecting on their prior Sonicwall solution, John noted that, “With this being a single appliance, the concern was potential disruption to email and Internet services, as well as the ever looming threat of security not being up to scratch at the gateway. We wanted to implement something that would not only protect our business from these threats, but would also instill confidence to those within our supply chain.”
Solution
Looking for a network security appliance that provided a more robust feature set than that of their Sonicwall devices - without compromising on quality - Sunray Engineering turned to WatchGuard. On the recommendation of their IT provider, John deployed a high availability cluster of WatchGuard’s XTM 330s at Sunray Engineering headquarters during the summer of 2015.
Reaching firewall throughput speeds upwards of 1.4 Gbps, the security of the boxes was further bolstered with the addition of several unified threat management subscriptions, including Intrusion Prevention Service, Gateway AntiVirus, Data Loss Prevention, and spamBlocker. WatchGuard’s WebBlocker and Application Control services were also utilized by the Sunray IT team, and were among the key features that led John to move forward with the WatchGuard deployment. The WebBlocker subscription enables the team to manage web access and content for everyone that connects to their network, blocking inappropriate and potentially dangerous sites and keeping their corporate assets protected. Application Control provides the ability to allow, block, or restrict access to web applications, such as Facebook or YouTube, based on anything from a user’s department to what time of day it is. Furthermore, Dimension - WatchGuard's cloud-managed network visibility tool that comes standard with all XTM and Firebox appliances - provides John's team with over 100 comprehensive dashboards and reports, making fast work of spotting trends and threats on the network, and enabling the team to take action accordingly.
Results
From the advanced webblocking capabilities to the ease of ongoing management, John has been pleased in the consistency – and quality – afforded by their WatchGuard solution. The deployment of their XTM 330 HA pairing has provided Sunray with a dependable solution for automatic failover, so that even if there’s an unexpected incident, their network will always remain secured. “The devices don’t require much upkeep or maintenance," reflected John. "They’ve worked effectively since they were installed, and that’s what we need for the business.” With WatchGuard, Sunray Engineering can rest assured that the same level of quality and protection that they offer their customers extends throughout their entire network.