DellSW_BGMX US CS.indd

BGMX adds application
intelligence and control with
Dell SonicWALL
Customer profile
NSA 3500 gives BGMX real-time visualization to drill down on network traffic
Company BGMX Retail Solutions
Industry Retailer Integration
Country United States
Users 70 retailer customers
Website
www.bgmx.net
Challenge
• Cumbersome firewall administration
• Lack of application visualization
Solution
• Dell™ SonicWALL™ NSA 3500 with application intelligence, control and visualization
• Dell SonicWALL TZ 100 firewalls
Benefits
• Application intelligence, control
and visualization
• Signature database of over 3,000
applications and millions of
malware threats
• Reassembly-Free Deep Packet
Inspection®
• Breakthrough multi-core hardware
“Now I click and drill down to see everything
my customers are doing along with the
bandwidth being used.”
Erin Desko
Chief Technology Officer
BGMX Retail Solutions provides a fully integrated services
platform and support network for approximately 70 regional
operators, small chains, and independent retailers in the
grocery and convenience store sectors. BGMX manages
VMware® servers and networking facilities to host Midax®
Point-of-Sales (POS) solutions, and uses TrustWave® scanning
solutions to help its customers comply with PCI-DSS and
SAS-70 requirements.
“My customers
absolutely love
it. Now I’ve got
a good handle
on bandwidth
going in and out,
who is using it,
and what should
be throttled, like
Facebook.”
Erin Desko
Chief Technology Officer
“For our customers, security and
reliability are absolutely businesscritical. We make sure there are no
security breaches between our internal,
external auditing and VLAN structures.
Everything passes through here on a
separate VLAN for any credit switching,”
explains Erin Desko, chief technology
officer at BGMX. “It comes into our fiber
trunk, then goes back to our customers
via RBS WorldPay link.”
The challenge: cumbersome
administration and lack of application
visualization
BGMX’s primary challenge is having
the proper bandwidth to adhere to all
VLAN specifications in PCI compliance
standards. Desko also must meet even
tighter SAS-70 regulations, as well as
his bank’s internal security guidelines.
After concerns that an existing Cisco®
firewall would not meet compliance
requirements, Desko decided to migrate
traffic to an alternative solution.
“As far as I am concerned, the Cisco
firewall failed miserably,” said Desko.
“I found the Cisco firewall too much
work to manage and configure; I need
a firewall that is easy to manage. It’s
also critical for me to have visualization
into the applications and Web sites
used by customers, and see how much
bandwidth VPNs are eating up.”
BGMX evaluated replacement solutions
from Cisco and Juniper Networks®,
before deciding to migrate traffic from
the Cisco firewall to a Dell SonicWALL
Network Security Appliance (NSA) 3500.
2
“Firewalls from Cisco and Juniper were
very cryptic. The speed and ease of
use was simply not there,” said Desko.
“I found that the Cisco product was
very cumbersome and hard to use,
especially in rules and interoperability.
It wasn’t worth the hassle.”
The solution: NSA 3500 with
application intelligence, control
and visualization for impenetrable
protection
Desko deployed a pair of Dell SonicWALL
NSA 3500 high-performance NextGeneration Firewalls in high availability
auto-failover mode at the corporate
gateway, and another pair at a colocation facility. Desko then had a
security specialist test his network
security. He found that extended
multiple attacks compromised his Cisco
firewall—but despite repeated efforts
were unable to penetrate the NSA
3500, even after two days of trials.
“The NSA 3500 is easy to configure,
easy to use and right out of the box,”
said Desko. “PCI compliance is basically
built in. That, plus automatic failover,
made the choice a no-brainer.”
At remote customer retail sites, BGMX
deployed Dell SonicWALL TZ 100
firewalls to provide secure site-to-site
VPN connectivity with the corporate
gateway. Desko initially faced difficulty
integrating the solution with the
remaining Cisco infrastructure, but
resolved the issue quickly using Dell
SonicWALL Support.
“The response time was incredible,” said
Desko. “I called at midnight, and they
worked with me to fix my problem over
the phone in just a few hours.”
The results: real-time application
intelligence, control and visualization
A tightly integrated feature of the NSA
3500, Dell SonicWALL Application
Intelligence and Control provides
BGMX with granular application control
and real-time visualization. Leveraging
a continuously expanding signature
database of over 3,000 applications and
millions of malware threats, the NSA
3500 lets Desko identify and control
applications regardless of port or
protocol, prioritize or throttle bandwidth,
and deny Web site access. As a result,
Desko can now easily view, control and
prioritize bandwidth for credit card
transactions, loyalty programs, and
Electronic Benefit Transfers.
“Visualization makes my life so much
easier. Half my days used to be going
through logs and chasing down
problems,” said Desko. “Now I click
and drill down to see everything my
customers are doing along with the
bandwidth being used.”
To meet customer service agreements,
Desko needs to control the use of
business-inappropriate Web sites. Dell
SonicWALL’s Application Intelligence,
Control and Visualization has enabled
Desko to uncover serious issues and
lock down inappropriate sites.
“My customers absolutely love it. Now
I’ve got a good handle on bandwidth
going in and out, who is using it, and
what should be throttled, like Facebook,”
said Desko. “For customers using VoIP,
I can make sure that voice traffic is
prioritized to avoid latency issues.”
The future: migration of all network
traffic to Dell SonicWALL
BGMX has seen rapid network growth
in the past year and anticipates more
customers logging directly onto their
servers to do store orders through their
systems. To accommodate growing
demand, BGMX plans to migrate all
traffic to Dell SonicWALL appliances
over the next six months.
“There is no question in my mind I want
to move away from Cisco and over to
Dell SonicWALL as quickly as possible,”
said Desko. “Depending on their size
and location, I plan on implementing a
Dell SonicWALL firewall—from TZ 100s
to NSA 3500s or higher—for all of our
customers.”
“For customers
using VoIP, I can
make sure that
voice traffic is
prioritized to avoid
latency issues.”
Erin Desko
Chief Technology Officer
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