Airport Travel Agency in UAE Enhances its Security Posture
Our client is a government owned premium travel agency established in 1985, primarily to cater to the needs of passengers travelling through one of the UAE’s international airport. IATA accredited travel agency, the agency has positioned itself as a premium travel agency in UAE by customizing its travel services to cater to the needs of the tourists and residents. Well trained staff are capable of planning and booking travel services such as worlwide airline reservation, meet and greet services, executive/limousine transfers, rent a car, conferences/meetings, air charters etc. the agency caters to a wide segment of society which includes business travelers, leisure travelers, groups and incentives. Using modern technologies and supported by 24 hour uninterrupted service and ‘Can Do’ attitude of the staff, clients travel needs are taken care with a spirit of care and professionalism. This approach has put the agency as a front runner among the premium travel agencies in UAE.
Business Scenario
The Group was faced with a challenge of running a network comprising of out-of-support appliances which had a direct risk associated with the security vulnerabilities & availability of critical business services. Most of the services offered by the agency were online it was necessary to have a secure, uninterrupted and reliable availability of business critical applications.
Since the business is very transactional in nature, in an event of any connectivity loss or network attack, there was a risk of direct business loss. The organization’s reputation and the brand name was also at stake, which was to be protected at all times.
To meet their strategic goal for improving service quality, reliability, efficiency and scalability the group engaged with Intertec to design, install & support the Next Generation Firewall based corporate network including the Wireless Network.
The solution designed for the customer was based on the customer inputs on current inventory, projected growth and constraints in terms of IT infrastructure and skills. We followed a consultative approach, wherein the technical specialists studied their requirements and suggested the solution based on customer inputs. Intertec proposed revamping the network infrastructure and replacing the existing legacy appliances with the new Fortigate Next Generation Firewalls.
Challenges
- Security Vulnerability due to old out-of-support equipment
- Increasing dependency on IT systems for online transactions
- Network connectivity related risks
- Preserving organization reputation and brand name in the market
Tool & Technologies
- Fortigate Next Generation Firewalls
- FortiAP based Wireless network
Solution
The customer had all the critical servers hosted in a centralized data center where all the servers running critical business applications were hosted. Our team then helped the customer to roll-out all the firewalls into production and fine tune the configuration for optimal performance and enhance cybersecurity posture. The other branch offices spread across UAE also leveraged the centrally located application servers to complete their transactions. With a secure connectivity to the primary sites, the stores were able to complete the transactions securely and efficiently.
The customer also leveraged the same set of firewall to build the corporate Wi-Fi network and saving the costs associated with the Wi-Fi manager. Since the devices were sized appropriately, the setup shall be able to manage with the growth in the customer based for the next 3-5 years.
As a result, the major advantages that were gained on deploying the Fortigate Next Generation Firewall in the network were:
- Secured network with uninterrupted availability
- Improved network performance and end-user experience
- Elimination of possible downtime, remediation costs related risks due to exploiting of any vulnerability caused by any virus or attack
Result
- Latest appliances with newer firmware resulting in increased performance & reliability
- Enhanced defenses and reduced security risks
- Reduced TCO and Scalability to meet projected business growth
- Cost Saving by leveraging the new firewalls to build the corporate Wi-Fi network