ACADEMIA

Fortinet announced that the University of Waikato, a New Zealand university, has deployed Fortinet appliances over competitive appliances.

Since its start in 1964, the University of Waikato has grown to a student population of 13,000 of whom more than 4,800 complete a qualification annually. Today the University employs 2,000 academic and support staff, making a significant contribution to the local and national economy.

When looking for a new network security provider, the University wanted a solution that would give them network visibility down to the application layer. Additionally, they wanted an intrusion prevention solution (IPS), virtual private network (VPN) for both SSL and IPSec and a firewall solution. The University turned to Fortinet partner, Gen-I, to help with the selection and deployment.

"When we shortlisted vendors for the final selection process, Fortinet was the only one that offered the horsepower we needed," said Dougal Mair, manager of ICT infrastructure at the University of Waikato. "The addition of the virtual domains was also an attractive benefit as it automatically reduced the number of appliances we had to purchase and had to manage on the campus network."

Located in Hamilton, New Zealand the main campus is where two FortiGate-1240B appliances are deployed in high availability active/active mode. The appliances are utilizing the FortiGate virtual domain (VDOM) capability whereby one appliance can be used to create up to 25 VDOMs. This allows the University to have a single appliance to virtually manage the disparate networks of the seven different schools including: the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, the Faculty of Education, Te Piringa - Faculty of Law, the School of Maori and Pacific Development, the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Waikato Management School.

To help manage and analyze the network traffic, the University has deployed a FortiAnalyzer-1000B appliance. The deployment of the FortiAnalyzer has allowed the University visibility and control of what is traversing the network. The University now has visibility into what is going across the campus network and control to block applications and websites as appropriate.

"Universities around the world find Fortinet's integrated security platform a perfect fit for their open networks because network control is maintained while allowing faculty, staff and student the freedom to do as they need," said Clive Levido, General Manager New Zealand and Pacific Islands at Fortinet. "Fortinet's breadth and depth of security is a perfect fit for the variable needs of universities."