NYC Charter School Organization Deploys SonicWALL Appliances To Secure Network

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/25/09

Success Charter Network, an educational charter management organization in New York, has deployed SonicWALL products to secure its network. The Network, which currently has four school locations, including the Harlem Success Academy Charter School, has set up SonicWALL's E-Class NSA E5500 and e-mail Security appliances. Previously, the organization used a Cisco PIX firewall for network security and a hosted service for Microsoft Exchange e-mail security.

"With our growth, we began having difficulties managing our security using the Cisco device and the hosted e-mail services," said Bryan Winther, director of information and communications technology. "We needed greater ease of use and expandability."

At the same time, he sought a more reliable e-mail security solution. "There were many instances where we were worried that important and time sensitive e-mails had not been sent or had been bounced," he said.

After doing an evaluation of potential products, Winther deployed the E5500 firewall and virtual private network. The E5500 can accommodate up to 4,000 VPN clients, up to 1 Gbps of anti-virus throughput, 2 Gbps of intrusion prevention, and 3.9 Gbps of stateful throughput inspection.

"SonicWALL provided a very cost-effective and feature-rich solution," said Winther. "I've kind of seen first-hand how public education systems can ineffectively apply their technology budgets. With SonicWALL, I've made sure we're getting the best technology value."

Additionally, Winther implemented the e-mail security appliance to secure e-mail traffic with anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing, policy, and compliance management. "Previously, it was impossible to supply white list entries or to check if incoming mail had hit the box," he said. "We now have granular control over our e-mail handling process. Messages from our board members and other VIP senders are now always received in a timely manner."

The organization used the services of Webistix, a managed service provider and SonicWALL reseller, to handle the installation.