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ALD Automotive's rapid growth in 39 countries has led to an exponential increase in IT infrastructure complexity. In order to provide cost effective and high performance access when needed, a mix of local and central Internet connectivity has been established rather than backhauling all traffic to a central site. With the evolution of the Web, content has become more dynamic and threats more sophisticated. Secure hacks are encrypted and require SSL inspection. ALD Automotive was looking for a full complete security solution.

With an increasingly mobile global workforce, ensuring security and applying uniform policy across all users and devices was a critical need. Historically, the company was using two on-premise solutions (Websense and a Squid Linux service) both of which were nearing the end of their contract periods. The company wanted to establish and enforce a global policy for internet access, provide secure access to the internet for all employees and ensure uniform coverage for the growing number of remote users, and mobile devices

With thousands of employees at eight different locations, Booth Newspapers struggled to find a comprehensive solution to secure and manage Internet traffic for all of its employees. Booth was interested in adding Web 2.0 control and additional Anti-Virus measures, requiring three times as many point products and three times as much maintenance overhead in the future.

Swisscom, a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland, had been providing free internet access to 7000 Swiss schools, 100,000 teachers, and 1 million students for over a decade. However, they faced the challenge of managing a large volume of data while ensuring the highest security standards. They needed a centrally managed solution for the educational network that could handle the large data volume and reduce administrative and cost efforts. The solution also needed to be able to filter web content to ensure that students were only accessing age-appropriate content, and protect the educational network from malware and advanced threats.

Lawter, a global supplier of resins and additives, operates in over 20 countries with a highly distributed IT infrastructure. The company faced a challenge in improving its internet security with a highly integrated solution that could cover mobile and remote workers. The company also sought to improve the performance of its internet traffic and facilitate a planned Office 365 implementation. The existing network setup required all remote access to be tunneled to headquarters and scanned by a firewall, which increased network latency. To improve the performance of internet traffic, local breakouts were required on three different continents. However, Lawter did not want to implement and manage additional network hardware, making security appliances an unsuitable solution. The company also needed to consider staff mobility, remote access to the corporate network, improved web security, data loss prevention, and productivity in the social media age.

SANTALUCÍA, a leading insurance company, was facing a significant challenge in enhancing employee productivity through mobile support while maintaining robust security. The company was struggling with two main issues: the inability to secure user browsing from mobile phones and the inability to control data usage over cellular networks. The company had implemented a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, but it did not provide control over traffic or data consumption. To promote secure mobility, the company tried implementing VPN connections from all mobile devices to the corporate network. However, this approach increased latency for users, required significant administration and end-user support, and generated an overwhelming increase in traffic that the existing infrastructure could not handle. Furthermore, it did not provide the granular control over user profiles, application types, and content categories that the company desired.

AkzoNobel, a Dutch multinational and global market leader in decorative paints, performance coatings, and specialty chemicals, was facing a significant challenge with its IT infrastructure. The company operates with a highly centralized IT infrastructure used by hundreds of locations in 80 countries worldwide. The growing adoption of cloud-based solutions was contributing to increased Internet traffic and consequent congestion of its WAN infrastructure. A hub-and-spoke architecture forced all traffic to be backhauled to a single regional Internet gateway each for EMEA, the Americas, and APAC. This setup faced serious capacity constraints and could not rationally support the expanding need for Internet bandwidth for cloud-based applications, as well as a pending Office 365 implementation. AkzoNobel’s IT organization began to study a new hybrid network model that would increase the number of Internet “breakouts” and improve performance in accessing the web, while guaranteeing a safe internet experience. Since AkzoNobel did not want to implement and manage additional network hardware, adding security appliances was not a solution.

MedAmerica Billing Services, Inc. (MBSI), a long-standing physician practice management organization, was facing significant challenges with its existing LAN proxy appliance. The appliance required substantial in-house maintenance, consuming valuable IT resources. Furthermore, the appliance was a single point of failure, causing outages across the entire organization whenever it went down. The existing security vendor suggested installing a proxy at each of the three office locations, a solution that MBSI found financially unacceptable. The vendor's hybrid solution failed to meet MBSI's policy requirements and the quality of support deteriorated after the company was acquired. Additionally, the existing system did not provide security coverage for mobile users.

The company, a leading provider of industrial equipment, technologies, and services, was facing a significant challenge in standardizing web security across its global branches. The existing solution, McAfee SmartFilter, had been deployed in some locations but not in others due to performance issues. When McAfee announced the discontinuation of SmartFilter, the company saw an opportunity to implement a single global web security solution to protect its workforce and improve its overall security posture. The company needed a solution that could be quickly and easily deployed across multiple global locations to meet the end-of-life (EOL) deadline for the prior solution. The challenge was to find a solution that would ensure minimal latency for an optimal user experience.

The case study revolves around a Fortune 500, technology-driven, multi-specialty healthcare company with over 10,000 employees in more than 50 countries. The company was facing a series of challenges. Firstly, it needed to protect its intellectual property and adhere to government regulations, a basic requirement for any healthcare company. Secondly, the company was experiencing rapid growth through acquisitions and expansion into emerging markets, and it needed to ensure that its IT infrastructure could support this growth. Lastly, the company was transitioning from an OPEX to a CAPEX model, which prompted the IT department to move all applications to the cloud.

The global automotive supplier, headquartered in Michigan, USA, faced a significant challenge in establishing and enforcing a global policy for internet access. With a workforce spread across 70 locations in 18 countries, the company needed to provide secure internet access to all employees, including a growing number of remote users and mobile devices. The company was using two on-premise solutions, Websense and a Squid Linux service, both of which were nearing the end of their contract periods. The company wanted to consolidate these two solutions and define a consistent global security standard that could be applied across all employees, irrespective of their locations.

The company, a global leader in media and entertainment, was facing a significant challenge in migrating from traditional broadcast technologies to IP-based services. The shift was necessary to keep up with the evolving industry trends and to ensure efficient data movement within the company. However, their existing solution, a multi-vendor proxy access, was not meeting their needs. It was causing frequent outages and operational issues, and the IT department had no visibility into threats or performance issues. The company was also exposed to upper-level application threats due to the lack of deep inspection. The challenge was to find a secure, high-performance solution that could effectively move content without negatively impacting performance.

The County Clerk Office's Information and Technology Services (ITS) department was facing a significant challenge in improving web security, providing a seamless user experience, and reducing IT costs. The department had been using Blue Coat appliances for web security, which initially worked well. However, as the county began to offer more online services such as training and streaming, the Blue Coat devices could not handle the increased load. This resulted in frequent slowdowns and crashes, requiring frequent reboots to maintain functionality. The ITS team was inundated with calls from dissatisfied users, making their approach to web security both frustrating and inefficient.

Agilent, a global leader in life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemistry, was facing a significant challenge with its network growth and the need to enhance flexibility and user productivity through cloud applications and services. Initially, 90 of Agilent’s 120 locations relied on Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for wide-area network (WAN) connectivity. However, over 60 percent of its traffic was destined for the Internet, and the MPLS system was causing performance issues, cumbersome management, and high costs. Agilent was forced to bypass standard methods and develop custom solutions for its larger offices to keep up with the increasing demand for bandwidth. This practice was not only expensive but also gave Agilent’s network administration team little or no visibility into Internet traffic. The company needed a more cost-effective way to secure Internet-bound traffic consistently across all its global locations.

Curalate, a digital commerce optimization platform, was facing challenges with its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) instances housed on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company was using OpenVPN, an open-source VPN product, to provide access to applications housed in the VPCs. However, this system had several drawbacks. Firstly, to access a specific application, the end user had to know which VPC hosted that application, requiring the user to have knowledge of the network. Secondly, OpenVPN had performance, usability, and redundancy challenges. Lastly, it lacked granular access based on policy, and policy management was difficult as each VPN instance needed to be updated every time an application access policy was changed. Despite having built its infrastructure on the latest cloud-based technology with AWS, Curalate's day-to-day operations were being impacted by the legacy 20-year-old VPN technology required to access that infrastructure.

Mondi, an international packaging and paper group, was facing challenges with its existing network infrastructure. The company was backhauling Internet traffic over MPLS to two centralized gateways, which was not only expensive but also impacted the user experience. As part of a decentralization strategy for all of its worldwide locations, Mondi sought a more scalable network infrastructure with increased security. The company also had a hardware-based proxy, software-based URL filter, and a large number of firewall clusters, all managed by a small IT team. It needed a solution that would considerably reduce the work required to provide secure Internet access for Mondi’s 10,000 PC workstations.

ECS European Containers, a Belgium-based intermodal logistics operator, was facing significant challenges with its on-premise server-based solution. The system was reaching its limits and was proving difficult to maintain. It lacked support for SSL inspection, which resulted in inadequate protection against viruses and other malware. Additionally, employees had unrestricted outbound access to the internet, posing potential security risks. The ICT environment, managed by 13 employees at the company's headquarters, was integrated into the entire service life cycle of ECS, supporting transport planning, warehouse management, and other paperless processes. The existing solution was not only failing to provide the necessary protection but was also proving to be difficult and expensive to manage and maintain.

Barry Callebaut, a leading global supplier of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, faced a significant challenge in integrating 12 international locations with 1600 employees into the company network and providing secure Internet access within a six-month timeframe. This was due to a major acquisition of the cocoa production business of Delfi Cocoa in 2013. The company, with over 85 connected sites worldwide, was also dealing with growing concerns about malware threats and cyber risks at the management level. These concerns were compounded by employee complaints about bandwidth congestion for corporate applications. This situation prompted the company to seek new tools that would enable the IT organization to gain insight into bandwidth consumption and control the usage of non-business-related applications in the social media age. The company needed guaranteed bandwidth for corporate applications and the ability to block unwanted traffic causing congestion.

GHD, a leading professional services company, was grappling with the challenge of providing secure, reliable, and scalable internet access to its employees across various locations. The company's complex ICT environment, coupled with an increasing reliance on internet services, posed significant challenges for GHD’s Information Security team. The team was tasked with ensuring secure internet access for every data center, office, and employee, regardless of their geographical location. The task was further complicated by the need to maintain and deploy firewall appliances in several offices or project sites.

Trade & Investment Queensland (TIQ), the Australian state government’s global business agency, faced significant challenges in managing its IT infrastructure due to its dispersed operations. With 23 offices and 180 staff spread across multiple countries and locations, maintaining strong, centralized control over IT security was a daunting task. The Global IT Manager, Anthony Kennedy, expressed the difficulty in providing comprehensive reporting to senior management due to the existing infrastructure. He sought a solution that could accurately depict the network's performance and the level of security threats the agency was facing.

Salmat, a leading Australian marketing services company, was grappling with a complex and outdated IT infrastructure. The company had grown organically and through acquisitions, resulting in a mixed bag of systems with no real standards, unsustainable customizations, and complicated integrations. The IT team was spending most of its time on maintenance tasks such as patching web proxies and updating security software, rather than focusing on delivering client solutions. The company was also struggling with product renewals and version upgrades. The outdated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was a particular challenge. After implementing a cloud-based ERP solution, Workday, the company saw the value of the cloud and decided to embark on a full-scale cloud conversion initiative. However, they faced a security dilemma as they were unable to implement single sign-on for Workday with the existing on-premises solution.

Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group, faced a significant challenge in maintaining simplicity, productivity, and reliability in its IT systems across a highly distributed environment. With over 100 sites worldwide and a workforce that needed to operate both on-site and remotely, the company's IT infrastructure was under strain. The increasing use of cloud applications led to a rapid growth in the need for Internet access. However, security controls were only present in the larger manufacturing plants. The IT team was faced with two options: backhauling the Internet traffic through the company’s private MPLS with an Internet breakout in regional data centers or deploying a cloud-based Web security solution with local Internet breakouts. The first option was ruled out due to cost and latency issues. The second challenge was to remove complexity while ensuring superior support services.

AutoNation, America’s largest auto retailer, faced significant challenges in securing Internet-connected computer systems and IoT devices across its 360 locations. The company needed centralized controls for managing Internet security policies, monitoring and responding to threats, and ensuring reliable Internet access for employees. The challenge was to apply consistent and robust security across all retail and corporate locations. Each location’s network includes an Internet point of presence and a direct connection to AutoNation’s data center. The company also had to accommodate the slightly different connectivity requirements of the more than 30 car manufacturers it supports, especially concerning Internet-connected vehicle diagnostic systems. Routing all Internet traffic through the company’s data center was too inefficient and costly, and deploying Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices to each store was also unfavorable due to the increased cost of hardware, implementation, and maintenance.

The HARTMANN Group, a leading healthcare solutions provider, was facing a significant challenge in its digital transformation journey. The Group had introduced Microsoft Office 365 to reduce administrative outlay for its IT department. However, during the conversion process, it became apparent that the bandwidth capacity at some locations would cause performance bottlenecks in cloud access. Additionally, mobile employee access lacked adequate security. The Group needed to replace the security hardware at each location with a cloud-delivered platform to reduce the administrative outlay. The challenge was to find a solution that could provide faster, more secure Internet access at all locations, enhance network security, improve efficiency, and lower costs.

Aster Group UK, a not-for-profit organization that owns and manages over 30,000 homes, faced a significant challenge when their workforce began to shift towards remote work. Their existing remote access solution, Citrix Netscaler, was unable to keep up with the demands of an increasingly mobile workforce. The company needed a future-proof solution that would allow their employees and partners to work remotely without adding complexity for IT administrators. Additionally, Aster Group was in the process of consolidating servers to free up resources, which required a simple solution that could reduce complexity while still allowing users to connect securely to mission-critical applications.

UST Global, a leading digital technology organization, was facing challenges with its on-premises web security appliances. As the company expanded, it needed a centralized management system for its web security, a reduction in security appliance expenditure, and a more secure and consistent internet experience for users across its multiple worldwide locations. The existing approach was time-consuming and costly, with the IT team spending a significant amount of time setting up, upgrading, and managing appliances to maintain high availability. Frequent unplanned downtime resulted in performance issues that impacted employee productivity. Additionally, the company was burdened with steep hardware licensing and maintenance costs. The lack of consistency in the way branch offices handled security posed a significant challenge. Deploying security policies consistently across multiple devices was becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. The company also needed a better web security solution for its remote workforce of about 7,000 employees.

Sanmina, a Fortune 500 global manufacturing and logistics company, embarked on its digital transformation early, adopting cloud applications and services like Google G Suite. The company has been actively migrating applications to the cloud and leveraging its advantages. However, the company’s migration to the cloud raised the bar for security. Prior to the Zscaler deployment, endpoint security and local firewalls on employee laptops provided a certain level of protection. However, when Sanmina’s more than 6,000 mobile employees were outside of the network and connected directly to cloud apps, they bypassed the security perimeter, increasing their exposure to internet threats. The company needed a solution that could provide comprehensive protection from web threats and enhance usability.

MAN Energy Solutions, a leading provider of largebore diesel engines and turbomachinery, was facing challenges due to rapid technological changes, particularly in the field of IoT. With engines and systems of all sizes deployed globally, many of which were in motion, the company was struggling to keep up with the pace of change. Additionally, the company's large and distributed global workforce was increasingly mobile, requiring mobile access to web apps and custom business applications. The traditional approaches to network and app security were proving inadequate for the modern cloud deployments that enabled global scale and access. The company was seeking a solution that would make these applications dark to the internet, with authenticated access only between trusted users and trusted applications. The improved speed and agility gained in cloud deployment was being offset by a poor user experience associated with accessing apps through legacy corporate VPN solutions, with increasing appliance, software, and MPLS networking costs. Furthermore, there was a desire to gain security advantages associated with making the apps invisible on the internet.

Genpact, a global professional services firm, made a strategic decision to streamline its IT infrastructure and fully embrace a multi-cloud strategy. This involved moving the entire application stack to the cloud, including Office 365, Salesforce, SAP Concur, ERP, and other software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms. The organization was also consolidating data centers, aiming to reduce the number to single digits. However, the transition was not without challenges. Certain products like Microsoft Active Directory were not cloud-ready, nor were some of Genpact’s partners. Additionally, the transformation demanded a cultural shift within the organization. Genpact’s internal teams were initially hesitant, citing potential loss of control and visibility. They were concerned about securing 75+ different locations across 25 countries, with anywhere from 500 to 5,000 users per office. Another significant issue was managing increased network complexity due to rapid growth and launching new locations.

Carlsberg, a global brewer headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, was facing a significant challenge in modernizing its IT infrastructure. The company had been operating a traditional centralized network that was not set up to accommodate the needs of today’s businesses and users. The network consisted of a hub-and-spoke architecture, MPLS with central internet breakouts, and centralized security controls. This resulted in a poor user experience, slow connectivity, and lack of visibility into threats and traffic sources. To support its strategic initiative 'Sail ’22', Carlsberg needed to undertake a complete system overhaul, including modernizing the IT infrastructure, embracing Office 365 and moving legacy applications to the cloud, taking control of operational costs, and strengthening security.