Taylor Nelson Sofres selects Fortinet for worldwide security deployment

Set to help protect 14,000 employees in more than 60 countries from viruses, worms and other Web-based threats, the full global deployment is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.

TNS has also centralized its security management and reporting functions with Fortinet's FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager platforms, providing increased visibility and ease of management across its international network.

In line with TNS's Global Security Strategy using Fortinet appliances, TNS Dubai branch also deployed a Fortinet 200a UTM appliance to safeguard the network from a previously unprotected threat area -The Web.

Ruso Dordi, Regional Manager -Information Systems and Technology said,

"Whilst a multi-dimension protection from web threats was always a prerequisite, one of the main criteria was to protect our global VPN network by preventing the spread of malicious traffic over our encrypted tunnels. Fortinet's UTM devices have helped reduced the threat to our WAN greatly. Fortinet has also helped us achieve significant cost savings on our Internet bills in the Middle East by allowing us to introduce and secure cheaper broadband links such as DSL and ADSL thereby allowing us to scale down on costly Leased Line Bandwidth by incorporating a "transparent" firewall design.

According to Dordi, this architecture allows for web traffic to be intelligently routed over the VPN (LL) or to the internet (DSL).

TNS Dubai was so encouraged with the performance that the IT team decided to proceed immediately with a Middle East-wide implementation covering eight other sites with the project likely to be finished in a couple of months time.

As a global market research company collating and providing real-time information on demand for a wide range of customers, TNS relies upon the Internet as the foundation for its business activity.

In order to protect its resources from ever-evolving Web-based threats, TNS looked for a broad security solution that could be deployed globally to help protect its Internet gateway and increase business continuity across the organization.

After a competitive tender process involving both third-party hosted solutions and internal appliances from a number of key security players, TNS recognized the multiple benefits of Fortinet's integrated security solution and decided to deploy FortiGate systems for IPS, Web filtering and antivirus functionality in every office across the world.

"Most manufacturers were able to offer two out of our three desired security functions but Fortinet was the only vendor with the capability to provide all three in a single security solution, while meeting our high expectations in terms of performance and cost effectiveness," said Kevin Braim, group IT Services director at TNS. "On top of providing first-class security, the flexibility of the FortiGate systems allows our security solution to evolve on a per-region basis, as and when required. Moving forward, Fortinet's integrated approach means that other security functions such as SSL VPN, firewall and traffic shaping can be switched as per a country's individual requirements. As a fast-growing acquisitive company, this made for a very compelling proposition".

TNS has already deployed two FortiGate-1000A appliances in a high availability cluster for antivirus, IPS and Web filtering in its UK sites.

The integrated multi-threat security solution has the large-scale capacity and resilience required to help protect all TNS' 2,200 users from malicious attacks.

"We kick-started the project at our biggest UK site, where 90% of our global activities are conducted. Our rationale was that, if the FortiGate device could cope with the very high traffic demands in the UK, which is around 435Gb per month, then the requirements of our other offices would be met easily," Braim explained. "Fortinet's security solutions addressed our stringent technical requirements and demonstrated the resilience and capacity needed to cope with the enormity of this global project, offering a full range of security devices to fit small and medium branch sites".

In addition to the security platforms, TNS has also chosen to implement Fortinet's FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer in the UK headquarters for centralized security management and reporting capabilities, providing increased visibility, control and ease of management across the regional and global networks.

These devices also help TNS to be proactive and pre-empt major disruption on its network by quickly segmenting and, if necessary, quarantining local networks in order to help prevent contamination of global operations.

"This is another great example of a large organization harnessing the benefits of an integrated multi-threat security solution that doesn't impinge on multi-Gigabit performance levels," said Andre Stewart, EMEA vice president at Fortinet. "This project is a demonstration of the maturity of our solutions that allow large enterprises to exploit the multiple benefits of integrated network security at optimized operational costs, with maximum control and visibility".