Gas South Enhances Business Continuity with CloudGuard IaaS in Azure

• Cybersecurity & Privacy - Cloud Security
• Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security

• National Security & Defense
• Oil & Gas

• Construction Management
• Tamper Detection

• Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
• System Integration

Gas South, a leading provider of natural gas, faced a significant challenge when it migrated its IT infrastructure to Microsoft Azure in 2016. The company had to ensure secure access to its mission-critical applications in Azure, even in the event of a data center outage. The on-premises data center was a crucial link between users and Azure-hosted applications, but if it became inaccessible due to a storm, disaster, or power outage, no one could access the business-critical applications in the cloud. Power outages were a recurring problem due to fiber cuts from numerous construction projects in the vicinity. Furthermore, data center outages are common, with 34% of data centers surveyed suffering an outage or serious service degradation in the past year, many with serious financial consequences.

Gas South is a leading provider of natural gas, serving over 300,000 residential, business, and governmental customers in Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina. The company offers simple and competitively priced rate plans, outstanding local customer service, and a promise to give back 5% of its profits to help children in need. Since 2016, Gas South has been recognized as one of the “Top Workplaces in Atlanta” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2016, the company migrated its previously outsourced IT infrastructure to Microsoft, choosing Office 365 as its new email platform, creating its own Active Directory domain, and migrating its server infrastructure to Azure.

To address these challenges, Gas South implemented Azure Express Route, a virtual private connection to ensure confidential access to their data as well as enhance reliability and lower latency. However, they still faced traditional cloud security risks and needed a security complement. After trying a Microsoft solution and a third-party appliance in Azure, both of which were inadequate, they found the right solution in Check Point CloudGuard IaaS. CloudGuard IaaS delivers advanced, multi-layered security for Azure environments, protecting assets in the cloud from attack while providing secure connectivity between the enterprise network and the company’s Azure deployment. It offers fully integrated security protections, including firewall, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), antivirus, and anti-bot defenses against unauthorized access and malicious network attacks. The IPSec VPN blade allows secure connectivity over a dedicated and encrypted tunnel between Azure Virtual Networks (vNETs) and the enterprise network.

• The implementation of Check Point CloudGuard IaaS has been a game-changer for Gas South. It is the only solution that provides stable, complete access to their critical applications and services in Azure, allowing users to work anywhere, regardless of an outage. For instance, Gas South’s commodity traders, who conduct live trading on gas trading websites, must be physically onsite to do their work. In one outage, the data center lost power and trading operations ceased. However, with CloudGuard IaaS, they were able to quickly provide them with authorized access. Agile, authorized access through CloudGuard IaaS has greatly increased uptime for many groups within Gas South. In another incident, an air conditioning system in the data center failed, causing the data center to overheat and shut down. Immediately, users were logged into applications through CloudGuard IaaS and there were no complaints.

• Significantly reduced user downtime
• Significantly reduced business risk due to unexpected events
• Increased employee satisfaction with ability to work from home securely