Residents of Europa House, a certified housing facility for the University of Illinois, faced significant issues with Internet connectivity. The single cable connection provided was insufficient to handle the bandwidth-intensive activities of approximately 100 residents, including accessing university web resources, online libraries, research databases, and other essential academic and non-academic resources. Network administrators received numerous support calls regarding Internet latency, which hindered students and faculty from completing critical coursework and accessing necessary resources.

Franklin Synergy Bank needed a unified solution for its network, web, and email security. The existing firewall was becoming a bottleneck, and the bank required a significant upgrade to handle the growing number of locations and remote users. The bank also needed site-to-site and client-to-site VPN services that could scale without increasing costs. Additionally, the bank needed to segment its network properly. The previous WatchGuard firewall was degrading in performance, necessitating a new solution. For web security, the bank needed to monitor online employee activities to limit time spent on leisure sites and restrict access to inappropriate content, such as adult and gambling sites. The solution needed to ensure that employees did not visit sites that could expose the bank to viruses and malware. The email infrastructure also required better control to manage spam, prevent data loss, and protect against viruses and DDoS attacks. The bank needed a centralized method to streamline the management of its security posture.

Paulsboro Public Schools needed better solutions for protecting students from inappropriate content and managing bandwidth. Its previous web filter and firewall solutions lacked many of the key features they needed, including SSL inspection and next-generation application awareness. In addition, these solutions were difficult and time-consuming to configure and manage. Magazu wanted feature-rich, easy-to-use, and affordable solutions for his district.

The merger of five companies into EXALO presented a significant challenge in integrating their IT infrastructures into a single, efficient, and secure network. The company needed to connect over 120 locations, including remote drilling rigs in areas with poor infrastructure. The IT team, led by CIO Piotr Grochowski, faced the task of creating a uniform firewall infrastructure that could manage data traffic reliably, prioritize applications, and ensure secure connections. Additionally, the solution had to be affordable and manageable by a small team, while aligning with the company's business strategy.

Herlev Gymnasium in Herlev, Denmark, with 800 students and 250 teaching staff, needed to redesign its entire network to align with its BYOD policy. The existing IT infrastructure consisted of six local servers and external virtual servers accessed through unsecured VLAN and other large parts of an unsecured network. This setup was too complex for the onsite administration team of two helpdesk workers. The network required a complete revamp, starting with a new firewall to ensure students were protected from malicious and unsuitable content online while using their mobile devices. The school also needed to acquire more bandwidth and achieve higher efficiency and security levels.

The IT team at ANTENNE BAYERN faced several challenges, including the need to create a uniform firewall infrastructure, prioritize bandwidth, and manage the complete solution efficiently and affordably. Additionally, they required a scalable solution to accommodate future infrastructure expansion. The existing infrastructure was not homogeneous, leading to inefficiencies in administration, especially at branch offices. The team also needed a high-performance high availability (HA) solution that could meet their stringent requirements. The goal was to migrate to a new, sustainable basis that would make the administration faster and more efficient, while also implementing a truly high-performance HA solution.

The IT department at Berglandmilch faced challenges in limiting and controlling operating costs, impaired communication, and ensuring a consistent security posture across the enterprise. They had outsourced site networking to an external provider, using a VPN with MPLS and ATM-leased lines. However, doubts arose about the cost efficiency and management of this setup, as well as the security of their data being held separately from the provider's other clients. This led them to evaluate alternative solutions, including the Barracuda NG Firewalls.

CBCX faced the challenge of connecting a new line of betting terminals across Europe. The company needed a more viable solution than hardware appliances to bring down costs and ensure reliable connectivity. Hardware-based VPN solutions were found to be more expensive to roll out and maintain compared to a centrally-managed client. Additionally, CBCX wanted to provide flexibility to customers who could use their own terminals or standard hardware, necessitating a reliable and encrypted connection to the CBCX datacenter without interfering with occasional Internet or email access.

Over the years, the IZB Informatik-Zentrum has built a highly complex firewall infrastructure to ensure the security of outgoing and incoming data traffic. More than one hundred gateways from well-known manufacturers were used in computer centers in Munich, Nuremberg, and Offenbach, as well as in additional server backbone locations and customer sites around the world. However, this infrastructure had reached its limits: Massive maintenance costs and the underlying system architecture have made troubleshooting virtually impossible. In addition, the associated management tool was not multi-client compatible—the provider offered this feature, but only via a cost-intensive add-on product. This situation had become unacceptable for economic considerations. Consequently, the team around Matthias Tauber, Department Manager Network Security at the IZB Informatik-Zentrum began to look for alternatives—developing a relationship with Barracuda Networks.

RHI AG faced the challenge of managing a complex and expanding global infrastructure with reliable communication connections. The company needed a cost-effective solution to replace its existing frame relay and MAN technology, which was becoming increasingly expensive and inefficient. The goal was to ensure efficient management of the infrastructure while maintaining high security standards and reliable communications.

There are few sectors that place higher demands on the security of technical information systems than the pharmaceutical industry. Medication and pharmaceutical ingredients as well as manufacturing processes are the culmination of years of cost-intensive research work, which means that losing company secrets could have catastrophic consequences in competitive terms. The social significance of medicine production also means that extensive state regulations have to be complied with, which should exclude manipulation of critical data at all times. So pharmaceutical companies have to prove the highest security standards, while at the same time, optimizing their infrastructures in economic terms. These include the implementation of efficient management concepts for distributed networks as well as protecting the business continuity with highly available functionality. This was precisely the challenge facing the Austrian Sanochemia Pharmazeutika AG, a company specializing in the research and development of innovative therapeutic agents for the central nervous system. The central IT department at the Sanochemia Group had long been aware that the old security solution was pushing at its capacity limits with the growing number of users. The entire communication with different subsidiaries ran via two firewalls at the main location whereby one gateway was solely responsible for VPN and the other for email and Internet. In order to guarantee smooth data flow, the company was considering the introduction of a high availability solution. However, it soon became apparent that updating the implemented hardware appliances was not an economically feasible option. It would also have been impossible to expand the high availability to the lines.

The direktanlage.at and Schoellerbank were to be separated to increase future flexibility and implement a powerful, scalable security structure. The requirements were high, with all external connections needing to be separated from internal networks by firewalls managed by several administrators with individual areas of responsibility and authorization. To ensure the permanent availability of services by Schoellerbank and direktanlage.at for customers, all components were designed to be highly available. The migration of the old system to the new one had to be implemented in just three hours, accompanied by a partial migration of the network from Token Ring to Ethernet.

Gibson’s IT team at Hemmera was facing complete lack of control over email. Incoming spam and viruses, unchecked outgoing email, and no visibility were causing lost productivity and exposure to malware, denial of service, data loss, and other serious issues that can severely affect network health and cause liability issues. Before switching to Barracuda, Hemmera used its ISP’s spam filter in an attempt to protect its network against email-borne threats. “It was horrible!” says Gibson when asked about the previous filter. Not only did it fail to keep out spam and malware, but it was extremely difficult to use and lacked necessary features. Gibson describes the non-intuitive management portal as, “The ‘90s called and they want their interface back.” Using it was unbearably frustrating. “We were so tired of having to call the service desk every time we needed a domain whitelisted or an email tracked,” said Gibson. “That filter couldn’t even manage per-user quarantines.” And so began the search for a useful solution that would be easy to manage and have all the features needed to not only to protect the network from email-borne threats, but also to provide comprehensive email governance.

Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School was facing significant challenges with their existing spam filtering solution, Symantec Mail Security. The solution was not only expensive to deploy but also difficult to manage and configure. The user interface was not intuitive, making it hard for the limited IT staff to operate efficiently. Additionally, the Symantec solution was consuming a majority of the server resources, causing performance issues and slowing down the Exchange infrastructure. This inefficiency led to delays in email delivery and an overwhelming amount of spam content flooding the inboxes of students and faculty members.

At Pine Belt Mental Healthcare, Internet access is a crucial part of daily operations for the institute. Employees must collaborate with other doctors, conduct research, share patient records, and manage billings. Paul was in need of a web filter solution that could provide a safe and secure internet experience while maintaining the control to apply granular user-based policies. For example, Paul wanted to only grant the Marketing team access to Facebook and Twitter but block these websites to other departments. “Having granular rules that differentiated between users was important in order to optimize productivity. We wanted to continue building out our social media presence, but limit access only to the team that was directly tasked with that responsibility,” Metzger said. Additionally, since there were a number of corporate-owned devices that employees were using offnetwork, Paul needed to extend his filtering policies to users beyond the network perimeter. “Our existing filtering solution gave us no visibility into how these devices were being used once they left the network,” Metzger added. Paul tested SquidGuard, a URL redirector that uses blacklists with the proxy software Squid; but he ran into multiple issues. SquidGuard was not easy to install and managing the rule sets to block certain domains quickly became chaotic as his requirements evolved. Paul needed a solution that was easy-to-use and had granular feature sets. With these specific pain points in mind, Paul began to research various web security solutions that could provide a granular level of security without sacrificing ease of use.

While using a PPTP VPN from a different vendor, Hilliker said his team encountered many challenges previously. The company provided an SSL VPN option, but it was cost-prohibitive. The PPTP VPN was not secure, and the initial connection was plagued with problems. VPN users were constantly contacting Hilliker for support, and the IT department was bogged down with requests for help getting the VPN to work. For many users, it meant not being able to work remotely, so they could not get work done if they were not able to be physically in the office. These problems also discouraged other employees from trying the VPN to work on projects while out of the office, greatly reducing overall employee productivity.\n\nIn his search for a new VPN solution, Hilliker evaluated the SSL VPN offered by WatchGuard in addition to the Barracuda SSL VPN. Ease of use for the IT group as well as the end users was a very important evaluation criterion. Hilliker found the WatchGuard solution to be very cumbersome, requiring several network adapters. Also, stand-alone software had to be manually installed on each computer to use the VPN. “It just seemed bulky and overly complicated,” said Hilliker. “The Barracuda solution is as easy as opening a web browser and logging in.” From there all the network resources and files employees would have if they were in the office can be launched with just a couple mouse clicks. No other set up is required. Being able to easily manage the VPN solution was also a consideration for Hilliker, as he has a small IT department.

ACM’s former backup solution was to store all data on tape drives, which were attached to individual servers. This process presented challenges to ACM as it did not have adequate staff resources or IT capabilities available to support the volumes of data being produced within the school. With so many students attending the UK school, access to data on a 24/7 basis is critical, so, with this in mind, information is regularly updated and added to the servers. In the event of a system failure or loss of data, ACM needed total reassurance that not only could information be retrieved, it could be done so in a timely manner, with minimal impact to the students. “Within ACM, we create massive amounts of data on a daily basis,” says Mallindine. “The type of data we produce is the students thoughts and inspirations; this is not always easy to recreate if lost. Therefore we need total confidence, not only in our IT infrastructure, but also the technical support we receive. Now through Barracuda Networks, we have this.”

The Almond Board of California faced several challenges with their existing backup solution, which relied on Symantec Backup Exec and tape libraries. The tape library was time-consuming, unreliable, and often broken, leading to increased complexity and costs in managing backups. Additionally, the organization needed a more effective disaster recovery strategy to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory and retention requirements. The existing system's inefficiencies were hindering the IT department's ability to focus on other critical projects, necessitating a more streamlined and reliable backup solution.

The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) faced significant challenges with their existing backup solutions. The process was tedious, the interface was confusing, and the device was labor-intensive to manage. These issues led to inefficiencies and potential risks in data protection and recovery. The organization needed a more reliable and user-friendly solution to ensure their data was securely backed up and easily recoverable in case of system failures. With over 64 TB of data, conserving storage space was also a critical concern for ARRL.

Paul Chen, the system administrator for the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC), faced several challenges with his existing backup solution. The backup was managed by a third party, which was costly and lacked transparency. Chen had no control over the retention policy options and found the backup capabilities to be limited. He needed a more efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly solution to manage the backup and recovery of email, database, and file servers at IAC.

Kirkpatrick Bank faced significant challenges with their existing backup system, which relied on Symantec tape backups. The tape system was unreliable, leading to frequent backup failures and concerns over the security of sensitive data. The process was also extremely time-consuming, taking up to eight hours, which was not feasible for the Network Administrator, Shane Danels, who had multiple responsibilities. Additionally, the bank struggled to protect data across its remote sites, further complicating their backup strategy.

When Drew Marine was sold, it was left with offices scattered around the globe and no IT team. There were no longer systems in place to protect or preserve vital company data. Griffith needed a fast solution and turned to tapes for a quick fix because on paper, that seemed to meet the company’s needs. Testing tape backups and restores between six different locations showed that it would be quite challenging and inefficient to use a tape solution. “Tapes don’t work when your offices are spread across the world,” said Griffith. Drew Marine does not have staff solely dedicated to IT in most locations, so sending tapes back and forth through the mail and having to explain what to do with them wasn’t feasible. Griffith was familiar with Symantec’s Backup Exec and CommVault backup solutions and knew they would not be able to meet Drew Marine’s needs. He decided to get demos and compare pricing for Iron Mountain, EVault, and Barracuda. “I had always used expensive solutions in the past, but this time I was focused on something that was easy-to-use and affordable,” explained Griffith. Describing his demo experience, Griffith said, “I thought if the actual backup product was even half as good as what Barracuda had depicted, we would never need to use anything else.”

Thibodeaux, leader of inMusic’s IT team, originally sought a disk-based backup solution to shorten the lengthy restore process of his tape backup. He soon realized that cloud replication was a critical feature and began his search for the perfect solution. During the process of comparing backup products, inMusic’s tape library broke and destroyed its final tape. “Barracuda Networks delivered the Barracuda Backup 890 the next day!” said Mello. Transitioning from a Dell tape library, which required an administrator to spend time every day loading new tapes, to the Barracuda Backup Server, which requires no daily administration, saved inMusic’s IT team a significant amount of time.\n\nThe bare metal restore tool has also added tremendous value for inMusic. Due to a previous administrator’s error, inMusic lost a drive and then an entire RAID array. Major production problems ensued when 1.5 terabytes of data were lost. Mello inserted a new SAS drive and used bare metal restore to return everything to the way it was—within nine hours. Mello was very pleased with the process and resolution, stating, “There was no remapping involved, no renaming anything. All user shares were fully restored!”

Before Barracuda, Michel used a tape-drive system with Symantec Backup Exec for his backup needs. The interface was difficult and it didn’t have the cloud storage they wanted. Frustrated with Symantec, he got a recommendation from a colleague, and switched to Barracuda. The difference was night and day. Installation was easy and it works right out of the box. Michel restores documents about once a month, and it takes less than 10 minutes each time. There is no longer any fear of accidental data loss or application corruption at Paul, Plevin with Barracuda in place. He was impressed that Barracuda Backup 490 requires no day-to-day maintenance. The Barracuda Backup 490 also runs Barracuda’s patented inline deduplication, which lowers the amount of space used for storage. In Paul, Plevin’s case, their storage needs are reduced by over 50%. That saves them time, money, and bandwidth.

MEOS, a fast-growing managed service provider (MSP), was growing weary with its previous Webroot security solution. Ransomware attacks were occurring one to two times weekly across the service provider’s customer base. MEOS technicians became skilled at removing ransomware and restoring workstations and servers without any data loss, but incidents caused between one-half day to two days of downtime for affected customers. Creating even more havoc, Webroot updates started causing servers to freeze randomly. MEOS researched the issue thoroughly and the only solution was to reboot the servers, which resulted in even more downtime. Moving forward, MEOS tested several cybersecurity solutions, including Bitdefender, TrendMicro, Webroot, Sophos, and ESET. The obvious choice for MEOS was Bitdefender Cloud Security for Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

At Greenman-Pedersen, one of the top engineering design firms in the U.S., much of the action happens in the field. That’s where engineers, scientists and other staff design and build bridges, highways, golf courses, sustainable and walkable urban centers and more. An organization that is often conducting field-based work can present cybersecurity challenges. For example, a significant portion of staff work remotely, making it difficult to patch and maintain security. Moving from McAfee endpoint protection software to Bitdefender GravityZone Elite has provided GPI with increased protection and streamlined security administration.

As a consultant and provider of SaaS applications and services to the mortgage and financial industry, focusIT’s customers expect solutions to be fast, highly available, and most of all, secure. focusIT’s task is to ensure that the company’s offerings run seamlessly and safely, and customers receive the best performance from their SaaS applications. As part of their operations, focusIT provides two solutions offerings to their clients: a self-hosted private cloud and an Amazon Web Services secure public cloud. focusIT adds, on average, 20-50 new servers per month between their two platforms.

PAAET is the largest higher education institution in Kuwait, with colleges spread across the country and centralized IT operations. The university provides wired and wireless Internet access for its students on a BYOD basis and is expanding its long-distance and e-learning programs. The IT staff faces challenges in understanding what devices are accessing the network at any given time. Previous security solutions did not provide the necessary control and visibility over thousands of endpoints. Additionally, deploying endpoint security in a Workgroup environment required significant resources and labor. PAAET needed a comprehensive endpoint security solution that could be deployed in its unique environment and provide control and protection over sensitive data such as student records, curriculum, and financial information.

Keeping a security solution updated across an organization should be the easy part. It’s fending off constantly evolving cyberthreats that often is the bigger challenge. For HAN, protection against advanced attacks, security administration, and performance were issues when it used McAfee security solutions. Not only did McAfee miss infections, but also during updates, HAN’s thousands of workstations and servers were frequently disabled or the updates missed certain systems altogether, causing them to lack the required level of protection. As McAfee was downloading and applying updates and performing antimalware scanning, workstation and server performance became sluggish and often resulted in hours of downtime for staff, faculty and students. To alleviate these issues, HAN initially evaluated Bitdefender and Trend Micro and decided on Bitdefender GravityZone to protect both its physical and virtual environments. Recently, the company evaluated and tested Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and Bitdefender GravityZone Elite. Again, Bitdefender came out on top.

Grupo Antea, a value-added reseller of cybersecurity solutions, selected Bitdefender as a partner 10 years ago. Initially, Grupo Antea maintained a partnership with another endpoint security firm but eventually Bitdefender became its primary endpoint security provider. Grupo Antea was seeking a partner focused on endpoint security solutions to achieve a competitive advantage with high-quality, easy-to-use endpoint security products and to speed up the turnaround time of presenting competitive proposals.