Healthcare Company – 4200 Appliances and Software Blades

With the Check Point 4200 appliances and the Software Blade Architecture we have plenty of headroom to grow as our business requirements change. We get great TCO and the units end up paying for themselves in under a year, they’re fantastic.
—IT Security Manager, Healthcare Company

Overview

One of the world’s largest medical diagnostics companies, this business provides laboratory and radiology services to medical practitioners, hospitals, community health services, and their patients. It currently employs more than 20,000 employees in its operations around the world.

Business Challenge

With continued growth derived through global mergers and acquisitions, the company realized that many of its newly acquired companies were working with disparate security infrastructures, often including old or even nonexistent firewall technology. With Check Point, it is able to:

• Standardize all locations to a single vendor
• Eliminate administrative burden associated with operating a multi-vendor security solution
• Consolidate security technologies
• Simplify network security deployments

Solution

Check Point appliances provide robust, cost-effective protection

The company standardized on Check Point appliances to provide robust and highly scalable network security throughout its globally dispersed network. The appliances serve as core firewalls, as well as the company’s main interface and border into its partner hospitals, which can have upwards of a 1000 devices that connect into the company’s radiology imaging and pathology infrastructure with real-time patient care communication. “The Check Point 4200 appliances deliver exceptional stability, security, and price performance in an extensible package that can grow with us over time.” Additionally, the company connects its medical equipment located throughout its laboratories to the network. These devices run on both Microsoft and Linux operating systems and as a result, just like any PC, are susceptible malware and other threats. To ensure the security of the corporate network, the company leverages Check Point UTM-1 Edge devices at each laboratory location.

Software Blade Architecture consolidates technologies, improves security

The Check Point Software Blade Architecture gives the company the ability consolidate multiple technologies, such as Firewall, IPS, URL Filtering and more, on a single device and provides it with the ability add new layers of protection as its business needs change and evolve. With more than 50 gateways and over 20 million events per day, technologies such as the Check Point Identity Awareness and SmartEvent Software Blades are critical in helping the company pinpoint users and machines when security issues arise. “We’re able to look at events, easily find out who the user is, and determine if further investigation is required. This saves us a couple hours a day by having the ability to make informed decisions upfront.” In addition the company has begun using the Check Point URL Filtering Software Blade at one of its branch locations which has entirely replaced the need for its expensive and cumbersome proxy server. With this success, the company now plans to roll out the solution across its global infrastructure.

Centralized management simplifies administration

To manage its large distributed Check Point environment, the company leverages the Check Point Multi-domain Security Management solution with SmartEvent, SmartView Tracker, and SmartWorkflow Software Blades. Together, the management solution provides the company with a complete view into its network security universe from a single console. “We’re able to manage our entire infrastructure with just two administrators. Having this level of central management keeps our labor costs very low; it’s fantastic!”

Benefits

Security

• Check Point appliances deliver excellent price performance
• Provide multi-tiered threat protection in an integrated package, at multi-gigabit speeds
• Identity Awareness enables the company to create rules based on users rather than devices, giving more granular control and customization
• Best-in-class NSS Lab recommended IPS solution ensures comprehensive and reliable security

Ease of Management

• “We get a complete view of our universe through a single management console—this really keeps our costs down.”
• Enables centralized management of the perimeter, extranet and internal firewalls through a single console
• Software Blades enable us to add additional technologies by simply checking a box through the SmartDashboard.”

Consolidation

• The Software Blade Architecture enables the company to deliver multiple technologies to protect its network in a single integrated device
• Consolidation of technologies simplifies administration, increases security, and considerably reduces hardware costs