Press Release
Fireproof Protection for Aachen's University Network
RWTH Aachen protects its network with StoneGate firewalls
Frankfurt, February 15th, 2006 - Stonesoft, an innovative provider of integrated network security and business continuity solutions, announces that the renowned technical university RWTH Aachen protects its IT network with the StoneGate security solution. After extensive testing, Stonesoft's firewall solution prevailed over three other competing products. A crucial factor for RWTH's decision for StoneGate was its superior bandwidth which easily handles the daily network access requirements of the entire campus with its tens of thousands of students and staff. With StoneGate, Stonesoft – which specialises in the areas of network security and high availability – offers a security platform that combines firewall, VPN and IPS functionalities with a central management system. In contrast to most of its competitors, all of Stonesoft's products are developed in-house, thereby ensuring that its solutions can be integrated seamlessly and without compatibility problems.
For a secure university network
Universities and research institutions in particular fall prey to mass attacks and denial of service (DoS) assaults. At RWTH Aachen, 5,000 staff alone and around 30,000 students rely on the availability of services and security within the network. Furthermore, the computing and communication centre at RWTH Aachen also cooperates with other German research establishments, both at a regional and supra-regional level. In doing so, its aim is to create a nationwide competence network. A firewall solution plays a crucial role, especially in a networked environment of this type. Consequently, not only is performance a central criterion, but also other factors such as user-friendly management of rules and objects, or future scalability to keep pace with growing demand.
"The outstanding thing about the StoneGate firewall is that it remains up and running, even under the most adverse conditions, such as a denial of service attack," says Andreas Schreiber, Head of Network Operations at The Computing and Communication Centre at RWTH Aachen. "Under similar conditions, where other products capped the link very early on, Stonesoft's system simply kept on going, Mr Schreiber continues"
High availability for the university campus
A special feature of the StoneGate Security Platform is its integrated load balancing technology, which guarantees a fast, balanced flow of data over the network – functionality either not supported by other products or only available optionally at additional cost. Consequently, Stonesoft's solutions meet the requirements of companies and institutions with distributed structures, where secure, high availability network resources are mission critical. Users enjoy a number of direct benefits from load balancing: firstly, the incoming data is automatically distributed over a number of linked firewalls, thereby reducing individual system load to a manageable level; and secondly, redundant firewalls can be entirely removed from the system, with the remaining firewalls taking up the traffic of the disabled system without any down time – an indispensable function for maintenance and upgrades.
About Stonesoft Corporation
Stonesoft Corporation (HEX: SFT1V) is an innovative provider of integrated network security and business continuity. Stonesoft is a global company focused on enterprise level customers requiring advanced network security and always-on business connectivity with low TCO, best price-to-performance ratio, and highest ROI. StoneGate™ Security Platform unifies firewall, VPN and IPS, blending network security, end-to-end availability and award-winning load balancing into a unified and centrally managed system for distributed enterprises. Founded in 1990, Stonesoft Corporation has corporate headquarters in Helsinki, Finland; Americas headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia; and Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. Read more at www.stonesoft.com.
For more information:
Schwartz Public Relations
Isabel Radwan
Adelgundenstrase 10
D-80538 Munchen
Tel. + 49 089 2118 7134
Fax. + 49 089 2118 7150
Stonesoft Corporation
Outi Torniainen, Marketing & Communication Manager
Tel. +358-9-476711
Email:
outi.torniainen@stonesoft.com
Wednesday, February 15, 2006