Sydney Church of England Grammar School Selects WatchGuard in Network Security Overhaul

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Chris McKie
WatchGuard Technologies
206.613.3760

David Bass
Bass Public Relations
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Sydney Church of England Grammar School Selects WatchGuard in Network Security Overhaul

SYDNEY - April 3, 2008. WatchGuard® Technologies, a global provider of network security solutions, today announced that Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), selected WatchGuard to safeguard its computer network.

The Shore network serves 1,600 students and connects 800 personal computers located across the school’s five hectare North Sydney campus. This includes classroom blocks, administrative offices, a library, the Information Technology Centre, lecture theatres, an auditorium and the school’s assembly hall.

In selecting the two WatchGuard x5500e Peak unified threat management network security appliances, Shore worked closely with Nexus, a WatchGuard partner headquartered in Sydney. Nexus reviewed the school’s infrastructure and helped determine the optimum combination of products. While various solutions were reviewed, Shore selected WatchGuard based on its strong feature functionality and ease of management across content management, anti-virus, spam filtering and reporting.

In a strategy designed to simplify costs, management and training the WatchGuard appliances will replace Shore’s existing network of point solutions.

The WatchGuard Peak appliances offer true zero day protection out of the box, with up to two-gigabit-per-second firewall throughput. They will provide Shore with full proxy firewall capabilities to prevent attacks from outside of the network as well as viruses, worms, or spyware brought in knowingly or unknowingly by internal users. In addition, the WatchGuard's suite of security services will help boost protection in critical attack areas, including intrusion prevention.

The solution's real-time monitoring component will also allow the school’s IT administrator to troubleshoot problems instantaneously and ensure that they are diagnosing the correct issues. Centralised management will also enable Shore to enforce security policies across all locations and users.

Increasingly in the education sector today, where traditionally security has typically been an issue of keeping external threats away from the network and protecting student information, schools have seen a significant shift to include the protection of private information and network integrity from users within the network. The WatchGuard solution at Shore will enable the school’s IT administrators to prevent attacks from outside of the network as well as viruses, worms, or spyware brought in knowingly or unknowingly by internal users.

About WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.
Since 1996, WatchGuard® Technologies, Inc. has been the advanced technology leader of network security solutions, providing mission-critical security to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. The WatchGuard Firebox® X family of wired and wireless unified threat management appliances and WatchGuard SSL VPN remote access solutions provide extensible network security, unparalleled network visibility, management and control. WatchGuard products are backed by WatchGuard LiveSecurity® Service, an innovative support, maintenance, and education program. WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle and has offices serving North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. To learn more, visit www.watchguard.com.

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