Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) – a world leader in high-performance network security, today announced that eClerx – an Indian firm providing knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) – has deployed the FortiGate® network security platform to strengthen its security posture, reduce management complexity, and free up real estate in its data centre. The outsourcing firm chose Fortinet’s solutions for their high performance, superior range of network security features − including single sign-on and virtual domains − and cost effectiveness.
eClerx, which employs more than 6,000 staff across six operations in India, provides data analytics, operations management, risk management and other business support services required by various industries. The Company has over 70 enterprise clients including more than 30 of the Fortune/FT 500.
Before deploying Fortinet’s FortiGate appliances in its data centre, eClerx was securing its organization through multiple dedicated firewalls, each implemented in its various departments. Facing strong business growth and the need for adding Internet connectivity and private networks in more departments, it became increasingly challenging for the IT department to manage disparate firewall devices.
The IT department’s task was further complicated by the fact that during business continuity scenarios, employees needed to access their accounts from different machines and locations. The previous firewall set-up would have required IT administrators to configure thousands of employees’ access on the fly when a business continuity situation strikes − an impossible task.
To better serve its long-term business interests, eClerx decided to replace all its standalone firewall appliances with a network security solution that would deliver an integrated suite of security functions including firewall, VPN, IPS, antivirus, Web filtering and endpoint network access control. The objective was to benefit from broader protection, ease management and free up data centre rack space. With this upgrade, the firm also wanted to implement user-based authentication through the integration of the new security appliances with the company’s active directory, so that users could have their security policies pushed to them irrespective of the machines they are using. Lastly, eClerx wanted the appliances to have built-in wireless controllers to ease wireless access management for employees needing mobile devices for their work.
After evaluating solutions from key security vendors including Cisco and Check Point, eClerx chose to implement two FortiGate-1240B appliances. FortiAP thin wireless access points were used in conjunction with these appliances’ wireless controllers.
“These powerful yet easy to manage FortiGate appliances boosted our security capabilities while cutting down on complexity and management effort. The out-of-the-box single sign-on feature which lets us integrate our active directory with the appliance is particularly handy, as it gives users seamless access from any device and spares our network administrators the tedious task of deleting users who have left the organisation,” said Sanjay Kukreja, Principal Technology Service at eClerx Services Limited.
The FortiGate-1240B can accelerate 38 of its 44 ports to switching specifications, allowing organisations to enforce firewall policies between network segmentation points for layered security with switch-like performance. This provides seamless performance to eClerx employees while they access the Internet or their internal private network, resulting in higher productivity.
FortiGate’s Virtual Domains (VDOM) was another feature for eClerx. This feature allows the appliance to be split into multiple virtual instances, with each single instance functioning as an independent FortiGate unit. Each VDOM has its own physical interface, routing configuration and security policies, allowing eClerx to cater to different departments through a single FortiGate device. The VDOM feature has also enabled eClerx to secure their internal cloud hosting service.
Rajesh Maurya, Fortinet’s Country Manager for India and SAARC, said: “The virtualization capability offered in our FortiGate appliances uniquely enables organizations to segment their network into multi-tenant environments for delivering best levels of protection and flexibility. This, along with our solution’s ideal mix of performance, feature set and manageability, allows us to gain strong traction in enterprises such as eClerx and be increasingly favoured over traditional point solutions.”
