Contact us for great customer stories in other sectors such as:
Accountants, Automotive, Charities, Consultants, Energy, Finance, Hi-Tech, Insurance, Manufacturing, Media, Universities
The following are just some of our success stories from various customers:
Sixth Form College Unifies Network Security and Monitoring
Schools, colleges and universities are becoming increasingly reliant on IT but as a consequence they are spending an escalating amount of time and money on security solutions to protect both the students and the institution from a number of threats including viruses, spam and unsuitable web content.
Historically, Havering Sixth Form College has addressed these threats by using a range of disparate security solutions from a number of different suppliers. However, since opening in 2001, the college has doubled in size to over 2000 students and found that these different solutions were becoming costly to operate and very difficult to manage.
Pat McConalogue, Head of IT at Havering Sixth Form College, comments, “With the use of disparate, incompatible solutions, we could not get a clear view of network activity. Each summary report was presented in a different format and would often be limited in the information it provided, extra work was then required by the IT team to interpret and correlate this data. Furthermore, using a number of different solutions was proving to be unnecessarily expensive. TTC has enabled us to save not only a huge amount of man hours across the IT team but an estimated £10,000 by consolidating products.”
Since deploying TTC Havering has already gained an invaluable insight into its network activity. The College found that over 80% of its past email was spam which is now blocked by TTC. This discovery alone has freed up a significant amount of the IT staff’s time and enables them to focus on more strategic work.
Neil Siveter, Senior IT Technician at Havering Sixth Form College, confirms, “TTC now provides a number of comprehensive reports detailing the amount of spam and viruses it has blocked and detected, this now gives us a full view of the network activity from a single source.”
Chartered Accountants Control Security Threats and Data Leakage
Brown Butler, the largest independent chartered accountancy firm in Leeds, has implemented Total Traffic Control (TTC) to provide a unified solution for their security needs, including USB protection and spam filtering.
Brian Canner, IT Director at Brown Butler comments, “USB storage devices were becoming a requirement within our organisation, but we needed to assess how we could monitor and control what data was being taken off the network. A quick solution to this was to lock down every USB port in the firm, but as more people moved away from CD storage and floppy disks towards memory sticks, locking down the USB ports became constrictive to the staff and a hindrance to the organisation.”
With TTC, companies do not have to take such constrictive action as the device management area of the program delivers powerful control of all removable media regardless of technology or connection method, including connection by USB, Firewire, and Bluetooth. Even if the laptop is off the network TTC will still monitor all file transfers, enabling complete monitoring of network activity.
Canner adds, “We were using a number of products we had cherry picked from the leading names in the security industry to combat our security threats including spam and the emergence of USB memory sticks which proved to be complex and inefficient. TTC provided us with protection from these threats plus many more in one unified solution, meaning we could remove the lock down on our USB ports but have the ability to monitor and control what activity is occurring and by which user.”
Law Firm Consolidates Security Processes
Mills & Reeve has selected Lightspeed System’s flagship product Total Traffic Control (TTC) to consolidate existing products and enable a clearer view of their network activity. This is to help predict and resolve future problems within their IT infrastructure.
Graeme Low, Head of IS at Mills & Reeve comments, “We are heavily dependent on inter-office communications through our IT systems. We needed to improve the way we manage the infrastructure and ensure we don’t put ourselves at any risk in terms of disruption to the systems that will effect the operation of the business.”
Low continues, “TTC will provide us with detailed information across the network allowing us to complete a full analysis of events and highlight any problem areas that may have resulted in the firm experiencing downtime.”
TTC provides the facility to understand how the network is being used and enables comprehensive information about user activity. This in turn ensures that network resources are used for the benefit of the organisation. With this complete view of the network and the ability to control what is happening on it, overall protection is achieved.
Established Law Firm protects against internal and external threats
Lupton Fawcett, the Leeds based integrated commercial law firm, has implemented Lightspeed Systems’ flagship product Total Traffic Control (TTC). The decision was made in a bid to run a unified product on their network saving time and money, and providing the firm with a seamless line of defence against external attacks and internal threats.
While the firm has very strong commercial expertise, it is committed to meeting the private needs of its wealth-creating commercial clients for wealth-preserving personal legal services. Lupton Fawcett is replacing a number of security products in a migration to a complete Microsoft platform. The products will be replaced with Lightspeed Systems single unified product TTC to ensure all security functionalities are efficient and reliable on the updated platform.
Shaun Denham, IT Manager at Lupton Fawcett comments, “After a comparison between our annual spend running 5 products to protect our network and the cost of implementing TTC it was a simple decision. We would be saving over £20,000 in the next 3 years by using just one product to fulfil our needs. TTC also offers the firm far more functionality than we originally had with our existing solutions giving us greater control of network usage and security.
TTC will provide Lupton Fawcett with the ability to monitor, control and secure its network enabling complete visibility on each user’s activity across the network. Whether they are browsing the internet or downloading files to portable memory devices, the action is registered and recorded by TTC providing the ability to monitor and respond to threats that may occur.
Scottish ‘law firm of the year 2006’ cuts business risks
Harper Macleod LLP, the award winning Scottish law firm, who was awarded the ‘Law Firm of the Year 2006’ accolade at Scotland’s two most prestigious law awards, The Law Awards of Scotland and The Scottish Legal Awards has implemented Total Traffic Control (TTC) in order to take a practical approach to content filtering, prioritising traffic across its network, recording email activity and averting the risks associated with ‘plug-and-play’ USB devices.
Richard Harvey, IT Director, Harper Macleod comments “As part of our risk management strategy we continually assess risks and threats to the business, as such we felt we required a solution which limits the potential abuse of USB memory sticks and inappropriate access to websites . TTC gives us control of all these activities in a comprehensive and granular solution that allows us to take a proactive approach to protecting vital areas of our business.”
Since the inception of Harper Macleod in 1988, the firm has grown rapidly to one of Scotland’s top tier large medium sized commercial law firms with a complement of some 210 staff (including 39 Partners). Harper Macleod required a security solution which was aligned to it's continued growth. A key element of the business relates to communication and traffic management between the firm's three main offices and it was felt that TTC offered a robust scalable solution.
Harvey adds, “TTC provides us with a comprehensive solution that is very intuitive and easy to administer. We now have complete visibility and control over any information leaving our offices either by email, USB memory sticks or even CD’s being burned, which is essential in an organisation that is reliant on the confidentiality of data. This pre-emptive approach gives our organisation improved security and control over the various threats to our business.”
In addition to the security preventions that TTC will provide Harper Macleod, the content filtering capabilities will also enable the company to avoid the risk of staff being professionally offended by inappropriate website usage. Harvey states, “There is increasing coverage in the press regarding employees being offended at work through inappropriate access to websites. This is yet another benefit of TTC as we are now able to monitor the sites accessed across our network and therefore eliminate this risk to our employees.”
100 Year old school takes modern action against online threats
St Mary’s School in Wiltshire has implemented Lightspeed Systems Europe’s flagship product Total Traffic Control (TTC) to protect their girls from online bullying and unsuitable internet sites. With the wide use of the internet by pupils within schools, education authorities are having to take action to protect their pupils from unsuitable internet sites and the emergence of online bullying. St Mary’s School, Calne, Wiltshire has tackled this escalating problem by heightening their network security measures with TTC, to monitor, control and secure both their internal wireless networks and internet connections.
Both a boarding school and day school of around 300 girls aged 11-18 St Mary’s School was founded in 1873 and still treasures its traditional values, which complement the modern curriculum they follow developing successful young women for the 21st century. The curriculum now welcomes the use of the internet as a modern research technique, but with the vast amount of uncontrolled information available to its users, schools need to implement a huge amount of security measures to protect their pupils. Furthermore, with the emergence of instant messaging and social networking sites such as MSN Messenger and MySpace, online bullying is becoming increasingly perceptible, adding to the threats surrounding the internet.
With the use of laptops by the pupils who board at St Mary’s, online bullying was a threat the school did not want to see becoming endemic. Therefore TTC was added to their existing security measures in order to enable each individual user to be monitored and protected from such threats with the use of content filtering. Matthew Rus, IT Manager at St Mary’s school comments “With the ever increasing use of laptops and wireless networks by the pupils, we as a school have an obligation to protect the girls from harm; whether it’s the use of unsuitable sites or online bullying. With the implementation of TTC we can achieve this.”
Matthew adds, “TTC not only enables us to monitor the sites accessed across our network but allows us to monitor individual users. As well as being able to set limits according to each different user, we can stipulate the time they can access the internet and indeed what they can access.”
Earnie Kramer, Technical Director, Lightspeed Systems “Students are now using the internet as a source of communication rather than just a research tool which adds a number of new security threats. We are delighted to be able to offer TTC to schools such as St Mary’s in order to help combat these threats and provide a safe, flexible educational environment.”
Fulfil the various demands of fee-earners
Taylor Wessing, with offices based primarily in the four largest economies in Europe, provides the full range of legal services to major corporations, financial and public institutions, growing enterprises and wealthy private clients.
Taylor Wessing regard Spam as a complex challenge. One lawyer’s ‘news bulletin’ is another lawyer’s spam and
more importantly when a client shares the same name as a commonly blocked message, frustrations can occur.
Tim Hyman, Head of IT at Taylor Wessing explained,“The IT Department needed to provide a flexible and
granular anti-spam service under our control that could be modified quickly - Total Traffic Control will enable
us to fulfil the various demands of the firm down to an individual level.”
Content filtering was another challenge. “We needed to set up flexible policies based on varying needs to monitor the negative aspects of internet access along with the more positive. For the first time we will be able to produce accurate usage
reports on some of our online services helping us to understand their true value. In addition due to the functionality of Total Traffic Control, the
IT department can step out of an inappropriate policing role as reports can automatically be delivered to the relevant heads of departments.”
Tim went on to say,“Future projects include scoping the possibility of locating a Business Continuity unit in a satellite office. Total Traffic Control
helps make this possible by managing the bandwidth to ensure that business traffic has priority whilst co-existing with business continuity imaging
over a WAN. As a bonus there is every chance with Total Traffic Control in place we may not need to go through a costly exercise of increasing
the WAN bandwidth.”
Priority is to ensure business email and internet access is always available
Taylor Vinters is one of the UK’s leading regional firms and their success is confirmed by the outstanding reviews in Legal 500 and Chambers’ Guide to the UK Legal Profession. Taylor Vinters single office strategy provides clients with a truly integrated service across any combination of law requirements. With over 200 people working at the firm's Merlin Place building, overlooking the world-famous Cambridge Science Park, they are able to service the legal needs of clients around the world.
Like many law firms,Taylor Vinters had been using a multi-vendor approach to network security, anti-virus, availability monitoring and content checking together with an external Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus checking service for checking all internet email. Steve Sumner, Director of IT for Taylor Vinters, commented,“For sometime we have been looking to find a single solution to provide us with an efficient and well performing
internet management system rather than using a mixture of diverse software and suppliers. We also recognised there were several areas on the
network where gaps between separate products opened up potential security weaknesses and created reporting ‘blind spots’. We realised that
Total Traffic Control would not only replace the existing in-house software but give us a far more comprehensive solution.”
Managing performance of internet traffic and email is another crucial area that Total Traffic Control provides. Steve explained,“Our priority is to
ensure web and email traffic critical to our business is always available at the optimum level of performance. We can create policies based on our
existing Active Directory groups and the built in legal categories to simplify administration. In the event of unusual network usage we are
automatically notified and can immediately change traffic priority through the interactive reports before users complain of any slowdown.”
Monitoring users to ensure compliance with internet and email usage policies is a way to guarantee that the internet is properly used as a
business resource. Steve continued,“We aim to follow best practice for IT usage. We can automatically receive scheduled reports on all manner
of internet and email usage. Total Traffic Control has meant we can track Web sites visited, files uploaded (e.g. to Hotmail) or downloaded (e.g.
streaming video), instant messages sent or received and even search engine queries (e.g. Google).”
Steve summed up,“We can finally be confident that we have a complete picture of how a single user, a department or the whole firm is using the network and internet and are able to manage that use properly and effectively.”
Security issues perpetually changing
Stephenson Harwood is an International commercial law firm with around 70 partners and more than 500 staff worldwide. The Firm has selected Total Traffic Control from Lightspeed Systems as the key component in a new multi-tiered security solution. Chris Petrie, Director of Information Technology for Stephenson Harwood commented,“IT security issues are perpetually changing and we have chosen a solution from an innovative and forward thinking software author. The Lightspeed Systems development team have demonstrated the ability to move quickly to keep pace with rapidly changing circumstances.”
Chris continued,“Total Traffic Control gives us far more than just a first rate Firewall. We now have the ability to manage the performance of our network and our users PC’s. The easy to use drag and drop interface and layered security model has made it possible for us to quickly deploy elements of the product throughout our entire infrastructure. This includes our MPLS based WAN that extends to our overseas offices as well as our Disaster recovery site. It has also enabled us to set up comprehensive security and QOS policies, all controlled from a central console. From a financial viewpoint the per user licencing model of Total Traffic Control has proved to be an excellent use of our budget.”
Tom Lee, Managing Director for Lightspeed Systems Europe said,“Stephenson Harwood has carried out extensive testing on our TTC product
over the past six months and I view much of the success we are now enjoying in Europe down to their hard work, meticulous attention to detail
and constructive criticism.”
Most Durable Firm tracing its roots back to 1570 chooses Total Traffic Control
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Thomson Snell & Passmore is the ‘Most Durable Firm’ tracing its roots back to 1570. Today the firm, with an excess of 200 staff based in Tunbridge Wells, is well structured and equipped to represent clients in an increasingly demanding world. Modern technology provides fast, efficient access to vital information allowing the firm to maintain the highest standards of efficiency and service.
Thomson Snell & Passmore had decided to migrate from Novell to Microsoft and therefore it was an ideal time to review the IT security of the firm. Susanne Jones, ICT Manager for Thomson Snell & Passmore commented, “We evaluated several security and network management options and discovered that Total Traffic
Control was the only product that gave us an all-inclusive solution as opposed to the familiar separate
products from different suppliers. One of the decisive factors for us was to be self sufficient and to be able to
implement the software without the need for expensive external consultants. Several of the features of Total
Traffic Control had previously not been available within the firm’s infrastructure. One such feature has been
the ability to manage the network to ensure availability of critical internet and email resources without the additional cost of increasing our
bandwidth. Other essential functions have been the necessity to protect the firm against Spyware and the ability to track email usage.”
Susanne’s final comment,“We are confident that in the future Total Traffic Control will not only provide us with an efficient and secure
environment but also enable us to realise cost savings for the firm.”
A full cost and technology analysis proved conclusively that the Firm’s assets are better protected by Total Traffic Control
Established in 1852 the practice has its headquarters in Tunbridge Wells and has an office in central London. Their 120 specialist solicitors provide legal advice and a wide range of legal services to many high profile clients, including publicly quoted companies, financial institutions, private companies and government departments.
In a previous life Mike Burton, IT Director of Cripps Harries Hall, was one of the first users of Total Traffic
Control when it was initially introduced into the UK. At that time, the core functionality was bandwidth
management,WAN load balancing and Firewall. Mike explained, “The capability of the Firewall to block
individual commands within a protocol was a key new technology for us at that time.”
He went on to say, “At Cripps Harries Hall we wanted a product that would secure all aspects of our
network and not just act as a perimeter defence device. I was aware of the unique way in which TTC makes use of its own IP stack in
preference to that provided by Microsoft to critically reduce vulnerabilities. Couple this with the outstanding Security Agent, which controls
which processes can execute on our Windows desktop machines, it becomes absolutely the right approach to reporting and controlling activity
on your network.”
Smart technology was not the only driver for Mike. Cripps, like many other businesses today, is mindful of security threats posed by both internal and external influences and have in the past deployed multiple solutions to counter these. It was the cost and complexity of these fragmented solutions that really motivated Mike. “When a more appropriate technology comes along and the cost of running that technology is substantially lower and the administration and reporting burden is reduced, then serious consideration has to be given to switching to that technology. A full cost and technology analysis proved conclusively that the business is better protected by TTC and at less annual expenditure.”
Mike continued,“Finally, the way the software is licensed on a per user basis gives us the ability to deploy any number of TTC instances across
our networks and that allows us the flexibility we need into the future.”
Allan Bower, Director of Lightspeed Systems Europe says,“Mike is known to be a technical expert within the Legal Industry and his
endorsement of TTC is a credit to the robustness and effectiveness of this product.”
Select Case Study
Find out more about how Total Traffic Control helps organisations monitor, control and secure networks.
Havering College more>
Brown Butler more>
Mills & Reeve more>
Lupton Fawcett more>
Harper Macleod more>
St. Mary's School more>
Taylor Wessing more>
Taylor Vinters more>
Stephenson Harwood more>
Thomson Snell & Passmore more>
Cripps Harries Hall more>
