WatchGuard firewalls secure Clinton Cards datacentres

Clinton Cards has selected WatchGuard XTM 1050 high-performance next generation firewalls to help secure its ongoing expansion and ensure high-availability communications across 800 plus stores along with support for growing online operations. The powerful, multi-function network security appliances form part of a major investment in new IT infrastructure at the UK's largest specialist retailer of greetings cards and related products.

The new WatchGuard XTM 1050s have been installed at two new large Clinton Cards datacentres in Woking and Docklands to handle all mobile and branch office VPNs as well as internal MPLS traffic between other Clinton Cards sites. The two datacentres are linked by fibre, so the WatchGuard appliances can act as a single firewall across two locations to guarantee high availability.

With ultra-fast 10Gbps speed, the WatchGuard XTM 1050 appliances have also allowed Clinton Cards to consolidate their network security infrastructure by replacing firewalls at three other sites and routing traffic via the two main datacentres with secure 24x7 backup.

"With over 800 busy outlets, if connectivity is lost or slows down it can have a major impact on our business," said Chris Hill, Head IT Engineer at Clinton Cards. "The new XTM 1050s give us a very reliable and seamless solution and with speed very important, we found the price/performance of the WatchGuard appliances unbeatable. They also provide the ideal platform to support our move to introduce new technologies and services that we are pioneering in our 'stores of the future'."

Clinton Cards also plans to use the Application Control capabilities of the WatchGuard XTM 1050s. This allows administrators to exercise fine-grained control over 1,800 applications including social networking sites - and enforce acceptable use policies by selectively blocking or restricting access to applications based on a user's department, job function and time of day.

The WatchGuard XTM 1050s also feature advanced networking capabilities such as clustering, high availability, VLAN support, multi-WAN load balancing and enhanced VoIP security, plus inbound and outbound HTTPS inspection.

"The WatchGuard appliances provide us with the solutions we need today and also offer a wide range of other capabilities that we can roll out in the future. The combination of raw power and multi-functionality certainly delivers more 'bangs for your buck'," says Chris Hill.