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Associate Professor Dr Montri Karnjanadecha, Director of Computer Center, Prince of Songkla University said:  “We are delighted that Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls can flawlessly connect with our existing network gear and enable a  standards-based infrastructure, freeing the university of its previous restraints and meeting its security and IT needs into the next decade.”

News Summary:

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), the global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions, today announced that the Prince of Songkla University (PSU) has selected its FortiGate enterprise firewalls to help it defend against emerging threats, manage users' Internet bandwidth consumption, and standardize its network infrastructure to facilitate the development of custom applications that will boost the efficiency of the university’s operations.  

PSU is one of Thailand’s leading research universities and is well known for its medical and engineering schools. The 52,000-strong university population, comprising faculty members, employees as well as local and international students spread across five campuses in southern Thailand, rely on the Internet daily for study and research. The Computer Center of PSU, situated in the Hat Yai city main campus, is responsible for managing the university’s IT infrastructure including fiber optics, Internet, CCTV and teleconference connections between the main campus and the other four sites in Pattani, Suratthani, Trang province and Phuket city.

Before switching to Fortinet’s cybersecurity solutions, PSU was running another brand of network security appliance. Those appliances did not use standard communication protocols and hindered PSU’s attempts to build and deploy in-house custom apps. Such apps were vital to the university’s strategy of reducing users’ reliance on the IT department and encouraging self-service. For instance, users have recently been given a custom app to check on their internet bandwidth usage, and receive an alert when they are near their monthly quota. Staff also have human resource apps that allow them to manage their leave and benefit entitlements.

In 2016, PSU moved to standardize its network infrastructure and evaluated several cybersecurity vendors, including Fortinet, Check Point and Palo Alto Networks as part of the process.  Fortinet, thanks to its next generation firewall performance, comprehensive security functionality and easy manageability, aced the months-long pilot test. PSU subsequently purchased several units of FortiGate 3200D and FortiGate 2000E from Fortinet’s partner First One System Co., Ltd. for deployment in its campuses.

Part of Fortinet’s Security Fabric, FortiGate enterprise firewalls have been regularly cited by 3^rd party testing agencies like NSS Labs, ICSA, Virus Bulletin and AV Comparatives for their security effectiveness and high performance.

Associate.Professor Dr Montri Karnjanadecha, Director of PSU’s Computer Center, said:  “Besides securing Internet access for our multitude of users, FortiGate helps PSU manage and enforce Internet policies efficiently. The appliances work smoothly with our many in-house developed apps, streamlining operations, increasing productivity and saving cost across the organization.”

Dr Karnjanadecha found several FortiGate features valuable. These include:

·         Through the use of standard communication protocols, FortiGate could directly accept the university custom apps’ policies, and Internet users can perform single sign-on across IPv4 and IPv6 technologies seamlessly.  

·         FortiGate’s BGP routing protocol, in collaboration with the university’s Internet routers, could give PSU’s IT administrators deep visibility into each user’s internet activity, seeing the web sites he/she visited and Internet bandwidth consumed against his/her quota. With this information, PSU can effectively manage bandwidth allocation according to its policy, so that all users can access the Internet smoothly.

·         The FortiGate appliances could provide detailed Internet usage reports that meet the requirements of users and the PSU IT team. Through a self-service app, users could easily view their Internet usage, web sites visited, video/application resource consumption, traffic types and malicious incidents. Since users can independently manage their own Internet usage, the IT team can stay one step ahead of bandwidth congestion and spend less time doing user troubleshooting.   

Assistant Professor Dr. Pattara Aiyarak, Vice President for Global Relations and Informatics at PSU, said: “Our mission is to produce high quality graduates with academic ability and a sense of social responsibility. A secure and efficient IT infrastructure frees us to focus on this goal. The FortiGate deployment has improved security, accelerated app development and increased efficiency of our day-to-day operations, making an immense contribution in this regard.”