Business Needs - Summary

John Kleis Car Audio is a 10 person company, based in Reading, which specialises in car audio, security and navigation equipment.

Remote access to the company is crucial to its functioning and maintaining its competitive edge, however they do not always have control over the state of the PCs which they use to access their corporate network. Using an un-maintained PC to access their corporate network exposes them to unnecessary risks.

“We need to be able to check the condition of the remote PC before it is granted access to our network” says Mr Kleis, the managing director.

Solution - Summary

John Kleis Car Audio had already enjoyed the benefits of ISA Server 2004 for a few years for its Firewall, VPN and proxy functionality and found it very reliable and easy to use. Their main server is running Small Business Server 2003 and the ISA Server appliance integrated seamlessly with SBS.

Benefits - Summary

John Kleis Car Audio staff are now able to securely access the network whilst on the road for checking the status of jobs etc. This has also enabled some part time staff to work from home from time to time with the knowledge that they are connecting securely.

Fast Facts

• Customer: John Kleis Car Audio

• Web site: www.johnkleis.com

• Number of Employees: 10

• Country: United Kingdom

• Industry: Consumer Retail

Customer Profile

John Kleis Car Audio is a specialist in car audio products, navigation products and car security. The company is based in Reading.

Solution

• Network Engines appliance running Microsoft Windows 2003 and Microsoft ISA Server 2004

• Active Directory

• Winfrasoft VPN-Q 2006

Main Quote

“We don’t have to sit through Reading [town centre] traffic anymore to check something on the system”

Business Needs - Summary

Their existing firewall product, while effective, was labour-intensive. Staff had to enter each customer’s internet address into the firewall manually. It was “pretty painful,” says Richard Castree, the company’s IT infrastructure manager.

“Security is often brought in as a blocker - as a way to say no,” says Steve Hope, an architectural consultant at Microsoft Partner Vircom, “but we view it as an enabler and we work with customers to enable functionality in a secure way.”

Castree was initially sceptical of a Microsoft-based solution. Partly this was because the critical web server was running on Apache, not Microsoft software. However, Vircom were able to persuade them that the proposed solution would work well with the third-party web server and provide first-class security.

Solution - Summary

Once they saw that the new system worked well, they deployed an additional ISA 2004 server to provide a load-balanced, redundant pair of firewalls that would guarantee high availability.

Benefits - Summary

The first benefit is that all user authentication is done at the firewall which means that no anonymous traffic reaches the vital web server. This significantly increases its level of protection.

Using ISA Server alongside Exchange Server gives Davies Turner secure and efficient remote email access. This has been a “massive benefit for the business,” according to Castree, reducing the expensive laptop fleet by 50 per cent.

But perhaps the most important benefit is that it is much more efficient and cost-effective to run than the previous system used at Davies Turner. ISA 2004 offers more features and easier management. As Castree says: “It took away the massive management overhead of getting customer IP addresses [and manually inputting them into the firewall].”

Fast Facts

• Customer: Davies Turner Air Cargo

• Web site: www.daviesturner.com

• Number of Employees: 500

• Country: United Kingdom

• Industry: Freight & Cargo

Customer Profile

The Davies Turner Air Cargo team is a specialist in air import, export, express and logistics requirements. The company is based near Heathrow airport.

Software and Services

• ISA Server 2004 Enterprise Edition

• Windows Server 2003

• Exchange Server 2003

• Active Directory

Main Quote

“The deployment of ISA 2004 Enterprise has provided a comfort zone for security and business continuity; it has also provided a cost-effective alternative to our long-standing Check Point infrastructure.”