BACKGROUND
Conpute is a solution services company and managed service provider specializing in IT infrastructure, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), wireless broadband, data centers, and procurement. Established in 1983, the company maintains its headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, and delivers local service in most major centers across North America.
One of Conpute’s clients is the Durham District School Board in Durham, Ontario. The Durham District serves more than 70,000 students and 8,000 staff members, in an area encompassing some 3,700 square miles, and includes 105 elementary schools and 21 high schools in the regional municipality of Durham. Its main offices are located in Whitby, Ontario.
CHALLENGE
Over the past two years, the Durham District School Board had been upgrading its IT systems by converting its WAN to fiber, and implementing various IP solutions, including a VLAN (virtual LAN), VoIP, and IP-based surveillance cameras. As part of the upgrade, the district also wanted to strengthen its network security.
The Durham District had already experienced malware problems that brought down one school’s network, and eventually spread to affect other district facilities. With nearly 80,000 users connected to their network, the Durham District wanted to ensure aggressive steps were taken to prevent future malware attacks and other unauthorized intrusions.
Like other K-12 school districts, the Durham District had to protect their network from external threats, as well as the risk of unauthorized intrusions by users within the network. “Today’s students are often able to manipulate technology in order to exploit weaknesses within a system and gain access to restricted information,” explained Don Conaby, president of Conpute. “The Durham District realized that a single outbreak could potentially spread throughout the entire district, giving students access to other schools and potentially the main education center. They needed a security solution that would prevent this.”
The district’s environment was complex. With approximately 15,000 desktops and a need for more than 130 firewall appliances, the WAN was similar in size to that of a large enterprise. In addition, the protection of sensitive student information was vital, and the school district is required to retain that information until a student turns 18. The district also needed to provide sufficient redundancy to ensure uncompromised connectivity, even in the event of equipment failures. What’s more, because the Durham District was in the middle of changing its IP strategy, Conpute had to validate that its proposed solution would work with the district’s current IP systems and with the new systems that it would be implementing. The complexities required that Conpute spend several months researching possible solutions and pre-qualifying vendors to ensure success.
WATCHGUARD® SOLUTION
In mid-2006, Conpute began discussions with WatchGuard Technologies about its Firebox® X family. “We already knew about the company’s strength as a firewall vendor, but we hadn’t realized how extensive their unified threat management (UTM) capabilities were,” said Conaby. “Once we found out that their security solution incorporated anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, and content filtering capabilities, as well as intrusion detection and prevention, it was no contest – we knew that we’d be moving forward with a WatchGuard-based solution.”
Another key differentiator for Conpute between WatchGuard and the other vendors that were evaluated was the real-time monitoring and reporting features, and WatchGuard was the only vendor to provide this. “That was a vital improvement for the Durham District,” notes Conaby. “When you’re monitoring some 70,000 students connecting to the network on around 15,000 computers, you don’t want to find out that you have a problem after the fact – you need to be able to catch it while it’s occurring.”
Conpute also liked the scalability throughout the WatchGuard product line. “You can easily upgrade the boxes without having to replace the hardware,” explained Steve Conaby, Conpute’s Education Account Manager. “You just purchase a model upgrade license key. Since the Durham District installation was going to involve more than 130 appliances – and its needs could increase in the future – it was an important feature for us to consider.”
Solution Details
Conpute’s solution provided WatchGuard Firebox X firewalls at each location, for a total of 134 security appliances. This gave the school district full proxy firewall capabilities at each school and facility, providing protection against intrusions, viruses, worms, and spyware, from both external and internal sources. separate fiber switch.
