Sevenoaks School upgrades to WatchGuard unified threat management platform

Sevenoaks School in Kent has future-proofed its fixed and wireless network security by installing a new unified threat management (UTM) platform from WatchGuard Technologies. The school’s WatchGuard XTM 850 gives its students and staff fast, flexible access to a wide range of online activities for teaching, learning, business and leisure, while guarding against cyber threats and potentially risky or inappropriate applications.

Sevenoaks School has a reputation for innovation and harnesses digital technologies to support its ambitious programme of learning: in the classroom; for personal study and research; for access to the school’s online learning platform; in boarding houses for leisure; for a growing range of co-curricular activities across the campus; and to communicate. The school’s IT infrastructure also supports a wide range of school-owned and personal devices, along with secure remote access for staff, students and governors who want to use school systems and data while they live and travel globally.

The IT Service team at Sevenoaks evaluated a short-list of products against its clearly defined needs before finally selecting the XTM 850 to replace its existing WatchGuard UTM. “We needed a solution that would provide long-lasting, robust network protection, that was easy to install with minimal disruption for users, and straightforward for the IT Service Technicians to manage,” said Simon Jiggins, IT Services Manager at Sevenoaks School. “With ever increasing activity and throughput, minimising latency for users was a vital requirement, while the increased range of ports allows integration for other networks. The flexibility to configure the ports and embed proxy settings has also proved very valuable.”

The WatchGuard XTM 850 provides 8 Gbps firewall throughput with best-in-class security services to boost protection in critical attack areas including gateway AV, URL and Web Content Filtering, Intrusion Prevention and Spam Blocking along with Application Filtering and Control.

The WatchGuard UTM was supplied by IML Ltd and supported by WatchGuard value added reseller Wick Hill. “Having a WatchGuard engineer present during installation made sure the process happened smoothly and correctly, whilst also transferring knowledge to the technical team,” added Simon Jiggins. “The UTM gives us the confidence to manage our network and meet ever-changing security needs to keep pace with the school’s digital needs.