IT operations management specialists, Space Age Technologies (SAT), has provided its networking skills and technical expertise to successfully implement Microsoft's Internet and Security Accelerator (ISA) 2004 server for WWF-South Africa (World Wide Fund for Nature) as well as the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF).
The non-profit organisations not only share a common office in Stellenbosch, but faced the same obstacles in terms of network security. Shortcomings in both the WWF-SA and PPF networks in terms of firewalling, access control, reporting and monitoring functionality persuaded the companies to decommission their Linux servers for state of the art Microsoft technology.
"Security was a mounting concern for both organisations, especially since our Linux solutions offered limited manageability and we faced a significant increase in overall network vulnerability," says Andrew Birss, IT Manager, WWF-SA.
SAT earlier assisted the WWF-SA with a Windows and Exchange 2003 upgrade. "SAT did so at a greatly reduced cost and we were very impressed by their level of service and technical know-how, therefore it was understandable that we would call on SAT to implement a security solution," says Birss.
According to Craig Ongers of SAT, the new network setup and server configuration will provide improved manageability and control. "One major concern was the unrestricted outbound Internet access afforded through the old firewalls. Additionally, to ensure better policing of Internet usage and bandwidth, we forced authentication of all inbound and outbound Web requests."
A large part of the solution lay in the re-configuration of the physical network. "Since both networks' clients needed access to services offered across a third-party WAN link, extra precaution had to be taken to secure both interfaces correctly," says Ongers.
"We experienced less than 15 minutes downtime during the entire migration and the results are completely satisfying. The combined features of ISA, Exchange and Windows server provide us with a very solid platform for future network expansion."
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