Case Studies
Secure, fast internet access for Wales & West Housing
Business Challenge
Wales & West Housing manage more than 11,500 high quality, affordable homes in 15 local authority areas across Wales. Following a period of growth and acquisitions the IT team were responsible for managing an increased number of office locations and users.
Having recently deployed a Hybrid Cloud infrastructure, Wales & West employees were using the internet not only for web searching but for accessing critical SAAS applications. With internet access required both on and off the corporate network, Wales & West wanted to provide a flexible and better experience to their users when accessing critical information, and without compromising on security.
Solution
Having worked with VCG on networking and cyber-security projects previously, and with the current solution in place not offering the required level of protection, Wales & West engaged VCG to find a solution.
Cisco Umbrella cloud security matched their needs perfectly. Enforced from DNS layer (it’s built on OpenDNS), Umbrella secures access to the internet across all devices, all users, and all locations both on and off the corporate network. In addition to securing network traffic, a centrally managed cloud dashboard enabled Wales & West to enforce their IT policy by controlling access to content deemed inappropriate for their organisation, and to visually report on the volume of threats prevented on a daily basis.
Wales & West initially trialled Umbrella across a subset of users, working in close partnership with VCG to demonstrate the value and utilise all the relevant features. Following the trial the solution was deployed across 500+ users.
Outcome
Wales & West were delighted with the simplicity of the deployment with no user issues reported at all following the migration across their entire estate. In addition to improving their user experience and meeting security needs, Umbrella has provided them with a single view of their device estate, web usage trends, and shadow IT – all managed from a centralised cloud dashboard. This enables them to visualise and report back into the business on the number of threats prevented at all times.
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