Santa Clara Valley Water District Reducing Overhead While Maintaining SecurityThe Santa Clara Valley Water districts IT department is responsible for water supply, flood protection and watershed management in Santa Clara County, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. The district was spending too much time managing individual virus problems on employee computers. In addition, the level of service that the district was receiving from their antivirus software provider didnt match the expectations of the people responsible for managing the safety and security of the countys drinking water.The district serves Santa Clara Countys 15 cities, 1.7 million residents and more than 200,000 commuters. Managing more than 700 miles of creeks and rivers and 10 reservoirs places significant and sometimes high profile demands upon the district. Flooding and quality of drinking water are of particular concern to district management, who are tasked with managing in an environmentally sensitive manner. The water district needed proactive, impeccable service from its security provider and it preferred local support. In addition, it needed a comprehensive security system that could be managed from a centralized location, yet protect data on desktop computers and servers for the districts staff of 780 people and 917 computers.The nature of our work is to deal with the unexpected, said George Kamenjati, office automation coordinator for the water district. I needed a system that would give me confidence that I would be alerted if a potentially harmful virus showed up somewhere in the world, a quick patch, and worst case, direct personal support if something slipped through.Another challenge faced by the water district was managing security for a growing number of employees without adding to its internal IT staff. Our mandate is to automate wherever possible and avoid adding overhead, said Kamenjati. It became very clear that it was taking too much time for our technicians to individually troubleshoot employee computers. The scheduling alone was a problem. We needed a way to monitor employee computers, remove viruses and automatically load virus updates over the network.Comprehensive Security with 100% UptimeKamenjati selected F-Secure based on his initial perceptions of the F-Secure team and on the products manageability and scalability in a Windows 2000 environment. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, said Kamenjati, and F-Secure hasnt let me down. We havent had to shut down the networks once since F-Secure was implemented.F-Secure monitors everything. I am alerted each time a virus appears. The desktop user receives an alert as well. Most of the time the virus is automatically removed by F-Secure but, based on the alerts, I can make an immediate judgment as to whether its something Ill need to look into.With efficiency ever in mind, Kamenjati implemented F-Secure Anti-Virus on a single PC which he uses as a security server to manage more than 900 computers. It works very well, he said. I dont even remember sending a technician out on a service call. Everything is now handled remotely. Another advantage of F-Secure is the size of its client module, which is very small compared to competitors -- averaging only 4 MB module on updates compared to 15 to 17 MB from competitors. Pushing 17 MB over the lines over 900 computers really slows down the networks, said Kamenjati. Since we do regular updates, size matters.Scaling Security For the Entire EnterpriseThe water district is currently using F-Secure to manage desktop and server computers and is in the process of adding email support. F-Secure will scan all emails and attachments before they can be opened by the user. We like how F-Secure handles attachments. It blocks those of a certain size and looks for trends. It handles local media very well, said Kamenjati. Using one system to handle security in all these areas is a definite advantage, in terms of both overhead and complexity, he said. We can update passwords or security changes and push them to different servers and on to individual computers remotely. F-Secure provides a module that updates the definition files automatically and distributes them at the intervals that I define.F-Secures BackWeb service also provides a level of confidence that staff can prepare for a potentially dangerous virus before it makes a local appearance. Ill receive an alert on the BackWeb that tells me what to watch out for and where it is, way in advance of any public disclosures. In most cases, Ill also receive a patch that is automatically applied to the Administration server, said Kamenjati. Even a little bit of warning helps.The Santa Clara Valley District is slowly expanding its use of F-Secure. Security is a policy here and it was reinforced after the events of Sept. 11. F-Secure is working very well for us. And the price didnt hurt either.NORTH AMERICA MAIN OFFICE & HEADQUARTERSF-Secure Inc. 675 N. First Street, 5th floor San Jose, CA 95112, USA Tel. (408) 938 6700, Fax (408) 938 6701 Begin | Back
impeccable service from its security provider and it preferred local support. In addition, it needed a comprehensive security system that could be managed from a centralized location, yet protect data on desktop computers and servers for the districts staff of 780 people and 917 computers.
F-Secure monitors everything. I am alerted each time a virus appears. The desktop user receives an alert as well. Most of the time the virus is automatically removed by F-Secure but, based on the alerts, I can make an immediate judgment as to whether its something Ill need to look into.
NORTH AMERICA MAIN OFFICE & HEADQUARTERS