University upgrades security

The University of Exeter has awarded Xchanging, the business process and technology services provider and integrator, a contract to design, deploy and manage its security upgrade project.

The University of Exeter is ranked within the top 1% of universities globally and listed as one of the fastest growing organisations in Europe. Data traffic levels at the University are doubling every 18 months and with the University’s increasing reliance on research activity and demand for fast online access by students, two new platforms are required to protect staff and student data and provide for future growth and demands.

Xchanging’s network and systems integration company, Data Integration, is the incumbent network provider and work has already begun to deliver the project. The new firewall platform, Juniper SRX 5800 chassis solution, will provide the high throughput, scalability and flexibility required to manage both extra-site and intra-site traffic. Furthermore it is compatible with the current Juniper Unified Access Control (UAC) platform.

Traffic shaping will be delivered by the Allot Sigma-E platform, which provides the scalability, granularity and flexibility to cope with the high traffic volumes the University expects in the future. The Allot platform also offers the management and reporting capability needed to inform network capacity planning.

The University’s Head of Networks, Roger Snelling, commented, “We have more than 16,500 full-time students using varied mobile devices. Fast, secure access has to be balanced with managing security threats and controlling traffic. Data Integration’s high levels of technical expertise and project management skills offer us the best value”.

Since 2008, Data Integration has been a trusted partner to the University. In addition to securing and stabilising the network with structure and standards, and delivering faster network access, Data Integration is working with the University on long-term recommendations. These underpin the University’s strategic plans and include developing a service transformation roadmap for the next 10-15 years.

Paul Philips, Public Sector Sales Director at Xchanging added, “Having a world-beating infrastructure is vital and the network is the central nervous system of the University. Our involvement with the University is helping to deliver flexibility and performance while maintaining security and governance”.

Www.xchanging.com