Bahri & Mazroei Trading Company (BMTC), one of the UAE’s leading providers of solutions for building and infrastructure development, has deployed a comprehensive suite of security solutions from Cisco as part of its ‘Smart’ initiatives focus.

System integrator Emtech helped BMTC implement Cisco Next Generation Firewall, which integrated ASA 5545 – X with FirePower Services, Cisco FireSight Management centre 750, Cisco URL filtering service and Cisco Advanced Malware Protection, it stated.

Speaking about the implementation, Madhusuthan, BMTC’s IT manager said: "As part of our smart initiatives focus, we were looking for a new security solution that not only met our IT and compliance policy requirements but also acted as a business enabler instead of just monitoring, controlling and restricting our users’ online activities."

"Our systems integration partner Emtech studied our IT infrastructure and requirements and came up with their recommendations, which included a suite of solutions from Cisco," he stated.

With this implementation, BMTC becomes one of the first companies in the UAE to deploy Cisco ASA with FirePower services since the solution was launched in the UAE last September.

BMTC’s managing director Esam Al Mazroei said: "Every day, UAE organisations like ours are faced with new threats that are becoming more and more innovative in the ways they infiltrate and attack our environment. This deployment from Cisco is enabling us to take a much more mature approach to our advanced threat protection efforts."

“We are confident Cisco Security Solutions will help protect and defend our IT and network infrastructure against advanced threats while also reducing complexity and costs. The solution is also helping us with effective utilisation of internet bandwidth and end-user browsing capabilities with next-generation features and security,” said Madhusuthan.

Emtech had beeen tasked with studying BMTC’s IT infrastructure and requirements to identify the bottlenecks.

“Our role in this project was to identify the pain points of IT security by understanding what is happening on the company’s network level, bringing better visibility in terms of protection and recommending the best solution which would lead to effective data centre security and business productivity," explained Vijayan K Raman, the managing director of Emtech.

"Based on the comprehensive study we undertook, we identified some key problem areas on malware, application visibility and control, and user visibility and control. Based on these problems, we matched the same with Cisco ASA with FirePower Services," he said.

Besides successfully implementing the Cisco security solution, Emtech also trained the BMTC’s IT team on its administration and has been providing the customer continuous service support, he added.

On the deployment, Rabih Dabboussi, the Cisco general manager (UAE), said: "As a leading security vendor in the UAE, Cisco is focused on developing integrated security solutions that help our customers be proactive and align the right people, processes, and technology."

"We applaud BMTC for taking the lead in implementing dynamic controls to manage the pace of change of their IT and network environment and address security incidents with Cisco’s suite of security solutions," he added.-TradeArabia News Service