CASE STUDY
THE ADM IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF
HOW GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHMENTS
APPROACH CYBERSECURITY AND
TRUST THE FORTINET SECURITY
FABRIC TO SECURE THEIR MISSION
CRITICAL NETWORKS AND DATA.
approach for monitoring, managing and
reporting. The solution is easy to manage,
allowing the security administration staff
to focus on critical tasks, therefore reducing
time to identify and mitigate threats. We
also need fewer resources to manage the
appliances,” added Aljeadi.
A combination of Fortinet’s solutions
have been deployed including FortiGate
Next-Generation Firewalls (three high-
end FortiGate 3200D, 24 FortiGate 300D,
45 FortiGate 81E, four FortiGate 30E),
FortiSandbox 3000E and FortiAnalyzer
1000E, across ADM’s headquarters and 45
branches within Abu Dhabi City to secure
close to nine thousand users.
FortiGate Next-Gen Firewalls provide ADM
with Intrusion Prevention Systems, VPNs,
URL Filtering, Web Antivirus, Anti-Spam,
Anti-X, Antivirus and Sandboxing.
After evaluating several solutions from
vendors such as Cisco and Palo Alto
Networks, ADM selected the Fortinet
FortiGate range of next-generation firewalls
as it met its stringent selection criteria
while providing a single-pane-of-glass
management and reporting system, flexible
features and integration capabilities with
third party vendors via the Fortinet Security
Fabric’s open architecture, high performance
and unmatched third party validation.
The fact that Fortinet offered local technical
assistance centre (TAC) support had also a
significant impact on ADM’s decision.
“Fortinet has provided us with a suite
of solutions and a single-pane-of-glass
www.intelligentcio.com
ADM has also subscribed to Fortinet’s services,
while utilising the FortiAnalyzer to generate
periodic reports for both c-level executives
and the security team. The implementation
took place in two phases with the data
centre and ATP being completed in Q1 of
2018, while the SD-WAN implementation for
the headquarters and major branches was
completed in Q2 of 2018.
“We are delighted to see an almost
immediate return on investment so early after
implementation. Not only have we received
high-end protection but have also reduced
our annual OPEX by more than 72%, while
increasing our latency and network capacity
fourfold. We have received significant business
benefits in which our annual CAPEX of ISP for
MPLS has reduced from 3.5 million dirhams to
less than one million dirhams,” said Aljeadi.
“As we witness the convergence of IT
and OT, securing tangible and intangible
assets has become an important aspect of
physical security.
“The ADM is a great example of how
government establishments approach
cybersecurity and trust the Fortinet Security
Fabric to secure their mission critical
networks and data. We are proud to have
the Abu Dhabi City Municipality as a
prestigious addition to our customers in the
public sector,” said Alain Penel, Regional Vice
President – Middle East, Fortinet.
“ADM will benefit from the Fortinet
Security Fabric approach with actionable
intelligence, integrated network intrusion
prevention, application awareness and
added firewall intelligence.”
The FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls
have helped ADM resolve multiple
challenges such as user identification, while
improving SSL performance by enabling
visibility and control of network activity on a
per-user basis.
It has resolved a content identification
challenge to prevent data leakage and
stop threats with detailed, real-time traffic
inspection through threat prevention, URL
filtering and file and data filtering.
Finally, the intuitive FortiPortal web
interface has reduced the learning curve
for the security administration team and
allowed them to efficiently manage the
FortiGate appliances through a single-pane-
of-glass approach. In addition, Fortinet
carried out intensive training sessions
for the team, while ADM has access to
Fortinet’s FortiCare services. n
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