Spice Telecom deploys Fortinet FortiGate Systems to protect critical infrastructure

Company Release

New Delhi, April 18

Fortinet – the pioneer and market leader in Unified Threat Management and only provider of ASIC-accelerated, network-based multi-threat security systems for real-time network protection – announced that Spice Telecom, one of India’s leading mobile telecommunications providers, has deployed Fortinet’s FortiGate™-300A Unified Threat Management (UTM) system as the cornerstone of its network security infrastructure. Launched nine years ago as a cellular phone service operator, Spice Telecom currently serves 1.5 million subscribers in the Punjab and Karnataka regions with wide coverage in urban areas and road networks.

Spice Telecom’s IT department was continuously challenged with trying to manage and maintain a large assortment of point security products from numerous vendors. This challenge was compounded every time a computer was added to the network. As Spice Telecom’s network grew, the IT department found it increasingly difficult to keep virus and spam signatures up-to-date and to effectively enforce security policies.

Spice Telecom recognized the need for a comprehensive, streamlined network security solution to meet its critical and diverse security requirements. IT administrators were eager for a solution that would be easy to manage, grow with the network as necessary and ensure up-to-the-minute security updates to virus and spam signatures. The company was also seeking a solution that would support High Availability (HA) and Load Balancing operations to eliminate any possibility of a single point of failure. After evaluating solutions from several vendors, Spice Telecom purchased and deployed two FortiGate-300A systems in a HA configuration to provide comprehensive, non-stop multi-threat security.

The deployment of the FortiGate-300A platforms has resulted in dramatic improvements in the integrity and flexibility of Spice Telecom’s network security infrastructure and a marked increase in IT staff efficiency. The ASIC-accelerated FortiGate systems provide a full suite of network security capabilities -- including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), VPN, Web filtering, anti-spam, and traffic shaping – to protect against content and blended threats in real-time. Tests performed on the FortiGate-300A systems by Spice Telecom indicated that scanning of inbound and outbound traffic achieved throughputs in excess of 300 MBPS, highlighting Fortinet’s excellent performance.

According to Mr. Navin Kaul, COO - Spice Telecom Karnataka, Fortinet’s robust capabilities and ease-of-use made it the clear choice for network security: “Fortinet's unified threat management systems provided us the best functional range of security applications and services, most of which are ICSA certified, and offered the best total cost of ownership. Additionally, we liked the high-performance the systems delivered, made possible by ASIC-based hardware acceleration."

The FortiGate-300A systems provide the performance, flexibility, and security necessary to protect enterprise networks. They feature two 10/100/1000 tri-speed Ethernet ports for networks running at or upgrading to gigabit speeds. Four user-definable 10/100 ports can be assigned to provide redundant WAN links, high availability, and multi-zone capabilities, allowing administrators to segment their network into zones and create policies to control network traffic between zones. Like all FortiGate systems, the FortiGate-300A systems are kept up to date automatically by Fortinet’s FortiGuard™ Network, which provides continuous updates that ensure protection against the latest viruses, worms, Trojans, and other threats — around the clock, and around the world.

Mr. Navin Kaul continued, “With Fortinet’s UTM systems in place, we’ve reduced our administration complexities and management headaches, as well as improved the robustness of our network security. Additionally, we no longer have to worry about a single-point of failure in our network, which was previously our only gateway to the Internet. The other real plus we’ve experienced with Fortinet is the fact that we only bear a one-time acquisition cost versus the huge annual maintenance and licensing costs for other solutions. Overall, this has been an exceptional value proposition for us.”

”Reducing network complexity and maximizing availability is a key concern for telecommunications companies,” said Hansen Chang, vice president, Asia Pacific, Fortinet. “The integrated security and management that our FortiGate systems provide enabled Spice Telecom to enhance network security and reduce complexity without compromising performance -- a perfect example of the effectiveness of UTM and the value of Fortinet systems.”

“Spice was keen to quickly migrate to a next generation perimeter level security infrastructure that would offer complete protection against content based blended attacks," commented M. Prabhakar Kini, Managing Director of Kinfotech, a leading security solutions integrator and a premier Fortinet Partner. "After a thorough review of Spice Telecom's security infrastructure services requirement, we felt that Fortinet's ASIC based UTM solution would serve the company’s requirements perfectly.”