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Baylor University Selects Crossbeam Systems' X-Series Next Generation Security Platform

By Anil Sharma, TMCnet Contributor

Baylor University has selected Crossbeam Systems’ X-Series Next Generation Security Platform to secure campus-wide communications for its 14,000-plus student body as well as administrators, faculty and staff.

 

"We anticipated a spike in network demand with start of the school year and wanted to find a more cost-effective and scalable way to manage our security infrastructure," said Scott Day, manager of network services at Baylor University, in a statement.

 

Day said that crossbeam enabled the university to consolidate its entire firewall and content gateway infrastructure onto a single X-Series chassis, while providing the flexibility to address future network demands.

 

Crossbeam Systems officials said that with Crossbeam, Baylor continues to use its security applications of choice--Check Point firewall and Websense (News - Alert) Web filtering--while building a more change-ready security infrastructure.

 

Officials pointed out that in addition to consolidating both security applications on Crossbeam (News - Alert), installing the X-Series eliminated the need to purchase more than 10 security appliances and related network infrastructure that Baylor would have needed to accommodate its security and bandwidth requirements.

 

"We have fewer licenses and appliances to manage, and can scale as demand requires; it's as simple as adding a blade to the Crossbeam chassis. This alleviates a lot of management headaches," added Day.

 

Crossbeam Systems, Inc. transforms the way enterprises, service providers and government agencies architect and deliver security services.

 

Crossbeam officials say that it enables customers to consolidate their security infrastructure on a carrier-class, scalable security platform that virtualizes the delivery of best-of-breed security applications.

 

The company claims that its X-Series is the highest-performing security platform, tested to wire-line rates of 40 gigabytes per second (Gbps) with ultra-low latency, providing unprecedented levels of scale and flexibility to support the security requirements of large enterprise and carrier networks.

 

Customers use the X-Series to protect their internal networks and deliver a new generation of virtualized services such as firewall, VPN and intrusion prevention, while reducing the cost and complexity of security services deployment within their data centers.

 

"Trends like social networking, outsourced services and the explosion of multimedia content are placing enormous demands on networking infrastructure, especially at higher education campuses," said Jim Freeze, chief marketing officer at Crossbeam.

 

Freeze said that the company’s goal is to ensure that customers like Baylor meet every new security demand with ease, regardless of the type or volume of traffic that is traversing the network, and with the security applications that make the most sense for their infrastructure.

 

 

Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anil’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jessica Kostek