Reducing Costs And Exceeding Goals
Maintaining highly available VPN connections at acceptable levels of network performance were important objectives for the De`Longhi Group. To achieve these objectives with traditional solutions would have added technology complexity and costs to network management budget. The StoneGate solution, with its patented Multi-Link™ technology, not only enabled the De`Longhi Group to achieve its objectives; it also reduced the costs of administration and accelerated return on investment.
E-Services is a global services company that is part of the De`Longhi Group. E-Services provides services ranging from application administration and maintenance to network connectivity and logical security from its datacenter in Treviso, Italy.
The challenge
E-Services wanted to upgrade its logical security to guarantee highly available and encrypted connectivity between the De`Longhi Group’s 16 offices in Europe and Eastern Asia. The company’s existing system did not offer the required connection speed and quality between remote offices and was not cost efficient to maintain and manage.
In evaluation phase, E-Services analyzed the cost of the initial implementation, the capital expenditure and the operational costs of the selected solution.
Operational expenditure analysis was conducted to determine the costs associated with updating the remote devices, consistent maintenance of security policies, reports of logged traffic and the speed to analyze network events. This is especially important as it directly affects the computer emergency response team’s (CERT) ability to respond accurately and rapidly to the threats.
“StoneGate has significantly reduced connectivity costs, while enabling an increase in the network performance, as well as enhanced possibilities for remote access,” said M.Sc Daniele Faccioni, general manager of E-Services. “Thanks to StoneGate, we have been able to cut off costly frame-relay connections and obtain a network entirely administrated by E-Services with analogical integrity and confidentiality.”
“ StoneGate has significantly reduced connectivity costs, while enabling an increase in network performance, as well as an expansion of possibilities for remote access,”
M.Sc Daniele Faccioni, general manager of E-Services
Solution
E-Services turned to Logical Security, a Stonesoft certified partner, for an analysis of its current infrastructure and for the future development plan. Logical Security, a consulting firm with multiple years of experience integrating systems and specialized in the logical security, proposed a plan based on the StoneGate Security Platform.
The final solution incorporates centralized management that is included in the StoneGate Management Center, supervising and managing the “functional engines” installed in different offices and connected through highly available VPNs to a Star Center in Treviso. This enabled lower total cost of administration with more effective management.
“Thanks to Multi-Link’s ability to manage heterogeneous network connections such as frame-relay and the Internet, StoneGate has given the De`Longhi Group the ability to migrate virtually pain free from the former architecture,” said Giorgio Parpinelli, project manager for Logical Security. “ The centralized management capability has enabled De`Longhi to configure and update devices remotely, eliminating travel costs - further contributing to a faster return on investment,” Parpinelli added.
Stonesoft’s patented StoneGate Multi-LinkTM technology extends high availability to geographically distributed connections. It also enables significant savings in connectivity costs and more effective link utilization.
Optimizing existing functionalities such as the connection to the Internet, and the comprehensive management of security policies in a timely and accurate manner without depending on diverse suppliers, E-Services’ network infrastructure has become an example that entities within the De`Longhi Group want to emulate.
Stonesoft’s contribution
The project began during the second quarter of 2004 with the implementation of the StoneGate architecture. Today, the solution is fully operational with a planned expansion of the solution’s footprint to include De`Longhi Group’s national offices and the activation of VoIP support in the near future. These options would not have been possible with the dedicated connections currently being used at the national offices because of the restricted bandwidth. However, with the successful implementation at the remote offices, StoneGate became the obvious choice for connectivity between national offices as well.
The implementation consisted of setting up protection for 18 external networks and ensuring advanced security standards for almost 1000 workstations with minimal administration costs. The scheduled extension will include eight additional offices totalling 300 workstations.
“The centralized management capability has enabled De`Longhi to configure and update devices remotely, eliminating travel costs - further contributing to a faster return on investment.” Giorgio Parpinelli, project manager for Logical Security
De´Longhi S.p.A. in Brief
Founded 100 years ago as a craftsman’s workshop, De’Longhi Group is a world leader in the portable heating, air-conditioning and air-treatment appliances and aims at achieving European leadership in cooking, ironing and floor care appliances. Group operates in more than 50 countries.
Ideas and innovation, research and development, production know-how, brand strength and international distribution have made De’Longhi a continuously expanding, multi-specialist Group. The broad array of products is the result of productive, technological and sales synergies; the constant development is made possible by significant investments into Marketing, R&D and Industrial Design, where the ideas are transformed into products.
Modern and automated plants, specialisation and complementary are the elements that make the De’ Longhi plants state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and enable the Group to provide products that are competitive in cost and extremely high in quality.