Gibraltar Solutions Selects AEP SmartGate
Professional Services Organization Secures Citrix with AEP SmartGate Technology
Gibraltar Solutions is a professional services company that provides fully integrated systems and networking solutions to help enterprises automate, streamline and manage their business processes. Based in Mississauga,
Ontario, the Gibraltar skilled team of multi-platform exper ts build and manage the IT infrastructures that companies require today, with an eye for the business and technology needs of the future. Gibraltar’s mission is to deliver the right solution with the highest degree of integrity and quality.
The Challenge
Gibraltar provides complete information technology foundations for business. As a key par t of its mission, Gibraltar must ensure that the managed services it offers are highly secure. This is par ticularly true in serving customers in the financial services sector, where there is a heightened awareness of the value of information traversing the Internet.
For one such financial services company operating in global markets, Gibraltar selected Citrix technology as the customer application deployment vehicle to obtain efficiencies of centralized application management. The plan was to create a very targeted work space for the end users and use strong security over Internet communications to protect the confidentiality of the collected and shared information.
The challenge was to select VPN (vir tual private network) technology with a small client footprint that could be closely integrated in the Citrix environment. A manageable alternative was required that would meet the customer’s extremely tight time-to-market demands.
The Solution
Gibraltar selected Citrix Extranet, AEP’s Smar tGate® VPN technology offered through Citrix Systems. Smar tGate’s strong security, ease of installation, simplicity of management, and high level of reliability significantly influenced the decision.
AEP Smar tGate technology gives Gibraltar the ability to effectively manage a large and growing user community. The technology provides a compatible solution that successfully suppor ted conversion of the customer’s applications into the outsourced service in just six weeks. In the 12 months following the launch of the solution, Gibraltar deployed more than 1000 users across the globe on a variety of mission critical applications, including both back office and trading applications.
When Citrix Systems discontinued sales and support of the Extranet product, Gibraltar conver ted from direct Citrix suppor t and has since become a Smar tGate channel par tner. The switch went smoothly and the Smar tGate product features and dependability continue to help drive productivity higher and total cost of ownership lower, with fast deployment and minimal suppor t calls.
Meeting Future Security Requirements
With server-based computing now established as the de facto standard, there is strong incentive to introduce new applications to Gibraltar’s users through this secured environment. And, in the aftermath of September 11th, companies are seeking greater levels of assurance for disaster recovery, highlighting the value of the outsourced environment and the secure access component for business continuity.
Use of AEP’s Smar tGate technology means that Gibraltar Solutions can confidently deliver strong protection for network communications and access to impor tant customer corporate assets entrusted to the Gibraltar services.
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