Nebulas helps Strathallan School solve problems with web security infrastructure “We just couldn’t have asked for anymore out of a solutions partner.”

Billy Greig, IT Manager, Strathallan School

» Strathallan School Strathallan is a co-educational boarding school situated on a 150 acre campus in rural Perthshire. The school has about 550 pupils

aged between 9 and 18 years who come from all over the world. Strathallan was founded in 1913 by Harry Riley at Bridge of Allan

and began with just seven pupils. It became a public school in 1935 and now ranks as one of the top independent schools in

Scotland. The principal aim of the school is to provide an outstanding academic and social education as well as numerous extra-

curricular opportunities. In addition to examination success, Strathallan seeks to equip its pupils with the skills required for their

future, a spirit of intellectual enquiry and interest in learning for its own sake.

» The Challenge Strathallan boasts a new and well equipped ICT Centre; all pupils take Computing up to Standard Grade and it is an option at

Higher and A level. In addition to this part of the curriculum, pupils at Strathallan are also allowed internet access in their own

time. Internet access is also required by teaching staff and an administration team of around 30. The type of web access required

by such a diverse set of users created quite a challenge for the Strathallan IT support team. “Policy granularity is one of our key

requirements,” explains Billy Greig, IT Manager at Strathallan. “We need to be able to give different sets of users varying levels of

access and we need to be able to change access rights depending on the time of day.”

However, Strathallan were facing particular challenges in this area by the beginning of 2010 because of the fact that their existing

web security infrastructure was starting to show its age. “There were complaints about slow web access from teachers and pupils,”

remembers Billy. There were also more specific issues. “For example the school has some Chinese pupils and our existing

infrastructure couldn’t really handle Chinese characters. “ This led to sites being blocked that shouldn’t have been and an increased

administration burden on the IT support team.

Another problem facing Billy’s team was the widespread use of Instant Messaging, the use of which had increased greatly since the

installation of the old web security infrastructure. Instant Messaging using applications such as MSN is almost impossible to stop

with older technologies that simply block internet ports. This is because the applications port hop until they find an open channel.

Whilst the school didn’t want to stop all instant messaging it did need to control it, both for legal and security reasons.

A similar challenge was Peer-to-Peer (P2P) downloads. “We have to be very careful about what pupils can download,” says Billy.

“The downloading of material protected by copyright for example could cause us some serious problems. The school wanted to

enforce a ban on the downloading of MP3 files but still allow controlled access to sites such as You Tube. Our existing solution just

wasn’t up to it.”

In common with just about every other forward thinking organisation, Strathallan was also looking for smarter ways to work. “I

wanted to consolidate our existing infrastructure rather than purchase separate appliances for firewall and web security,” states

Billy. “We are always looking for ways to make our IT budget work harder and this seemed an ideal opportunity.”

» The Solution Strathallan began speaking with Nebulas Solutions Group at the beginning of the year. “We built up a real rapport with our account

manager and it was obvious that they really were experts in this area,” Billy says. “They didn’t just say that they could supply

whatever we wanted. They really instilled confidence.” It was established that the best option for Strathallan was the PA-500

appliance from Palo Alto Networks™. The PA-500 is a next-generation firewall that delivers unprecedented visibility and control

over applications, users and content on medium and enterprise networks.

Nebulas recommended the Palo Alto appliance for a number of reasons. It is application aware which means that the appliance can

identify applications such as instant messaging irrespective of port, protocol or encryption. In addition to this application

identification, the Palo Alto appliance combines firewall and VPN, user identification, data and url filtering, Quality of Service and

threat prevention. The versatility of the Palo Alto solution made it the perfect match for Strathallan, enabling them to consolidate

all of their internet access and security functionality onto one appliance.

Strathallan took delivery of an evaluation appliance in February and the Nebulas team continued to impress Billy. “The consultant

that Nebulas sent to install the box was great. He knew the product really well and answered lots of questions from my team about

configuration options. Nothing was too much trouble.”

Strathallan realised some immediate benefits from the evaluation appliance. “We tested it with some pupils across various boarding

houses and the feedback was really positive,” Billy states. We had less than 1% negative feedback!” The superior visibility and

reporting tools that Palo Alto offer gave Billy’s team a real insight into user behaviour that they had previously been lacking. “We

got a great insight into our network,” states Billy, “and the packet shaping functionality has meant that we can deliver much faster

web access to our users.”

It didn’t take Strathallan long to decide that this was the right solution, and that they wanted to continue to work with Nebulas on

the purchase and support of the PA-500. “To say we got our money’s worth out of Nebulas is an understatement,” says Billy. “We

just couldn’t have asked for anymore out of a solutions partner.”

In addition to being delighted with the service received from Nebulas, Strathallan were also very happy with the cost savings

delivered by the appliance. “By consolidating into one appliance we’ve saved around £8000 over three years,” says Billy.

» The Future Because Strathallan are now happy with their web security and have excellent visibility of web traffic they are now looking to invest

in faster connectivity. “This is going to open up all sorts of avenues for us to explore,” predicts Billy. “I am sure we will be working

with Nebulas on some of these.”

» Customer Needs Met • Reduction in cost of web security infrastructure of £8000 over three years

• Consolidation of multiple appliances leading to a reduced management overhead

• Increased granularity of control resulting in reduced exposure to security, operational and legal risks

• Quality of Service functionality leading to faster web access and a better user experience

• Improved, more resilient web security infrastructure enabling greater operational continuity

» Deployed Solution Palo Alto PA-500