The best of both worlds:
A unique partnership establishes the Cloud-based foundation for a new breed of cyber security
Garrison is pioneering a new breed of cyber security
Garrison is pioneering a new breed of cyber security – one that brings the standard of security that has previously been reserved for government organisations to the commercial sector, enabling enterprise-wide secure web access, and the implementation of zero-trust strategies across even the most highly dispersed infrastructure.
As part of the drive to optimise the level of control and visibility of their solutions – both for Garrison teams and their end users – the decision was made to begin bringing existing physical solutions into the Cloud, where possible.
Secure, resilient, and high-performance networking would be critical to the success of this project. As a result, Garrison began the hunt for a technology partner who could complement their own cyber security expertise with the design and deployment of an underlying network that would not only support their immediate Cloud transformation, but also provide ample scope to expand into new regions worldwide and implement new solutions and service optimisations in the future.
After engaging with the Exponential-e Group to explore their networking requirements in depth, Garrison partnered with the Enterprise Solutions team from Xpertex. Following a period of intensive consultation, Xpertex began work on the initial design for the new architecture.
We’re free to develop things as we want, but we still have a lot of Xpertex DNA in our infrastructure and know we can always rely on them when their expertise is needed, particularly when it’s time to bring a new concept into reality. It’s a good balance.
Once the concept for the new network had been finalised and approved, Xpertex took a hands-on role throughout its execution. This not only served to ensure targets were met throughout, but also provided Garrison’s own teams with the means to broaden their knowledge of networking technology.
As the project progressed, this would allow them to transition from a fully managed service to a partially managed one, with Garrison’s own teams taking on more autonomy by assuming responsibility for the day-to-day management of the network, while the Xpertex Enterprise Solutions team undertook a phased transition into a more consultative, supportive role, providing technical guidance and troubleshooting whenever necessary.
This not only allowed for greater coverage and visibility in the event of emergency, but proved invaluable as Garrison’s requirements evolved, both in terms of developing their solutions’ capabilities, and expanding their geographical reach into new regions, evolving from a single rack of equipment to six locations around the world.
This was complemented by a number of further developments, to ensure security and service quality would be maintained at all times, such as the introduction of console servers, to minimise the need for on-site staff, to domain controllers for streamlined management processes, and highly available servers and firewalls, to optimise the network’s overall resilience.
To optimise the effectiveness of this evolving partnership and strike the ideal balance between internal and external capabilities, a tailored support contract was created. This involved a move to 8/5 support, with the aim of optimising the uptime of the entire network, with Xpertex streamlining the entire process by offering a service that would typically have required the vendor’s input, and implementing a vulnerability scanner, to allow for more proactive monitoring and situational awareness.
The evolution of this partnership has allowed Garrison to institute a culture of constant improvement at all levels, as teams continue to work closely with Xpertex’s Enterprise Solutions team to roll out new innovations and ensure their entire solution portfolio offers customers and end users the very highest standards of security, availability, and resilience – standards that would previously have been the sole preserve of government organisations.
