ORGANIZATION:
UNIVEG
INDUSTRY:
Wholesale and Retail
CHALLENGE:
Strengthen network security; maintain high performance; and improve network traffic visibility.
SOLUTION:
Palo Alto Networks® Next-Generation Security Platform, including Threat Prevention and URL Filtering.
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Threat Prevention, URL Filtering (with PAN-DB)
APPLIANCES:
PA-500 (4)
UNIVEG Trade Italy exports fresh fruits and vegetables to Northern Europe for the UNIVEG Group, a worldwide distributor of fresh produce, specializing in fruits and vegetables, flowers and plants, and convenience products. Founded in 1969 and based near Verona, UNIVEG Trade Italy also imports overseas products and handles their sales throughout the Mediterranean, leveraging UNIVEG’s global transportation and logistics network for import and export activities.
For anyone across northern Europe and the Mediterranean who enjoys eating a juicy tomato or savoring grapes or olives, chances are it’s courtesy of UNIVEG Trade Italy. Part of the global UNIVEG Group of companies, UNIVEG Trade Italy relies on a sophisticated transportation and logistics network to bring the freshest fruits and vegetables to merchants across Northern Europe and across the Mediterranean.
Network security and performance is critical to meeting the company’s quality and efficiency standards and to ensure accurate and timely deliveries are made while the produce is fresh. Malware attacks were clogging the network, and UNIVEG Trade Italy lacked the visibility and control to block them. Managing UNIVEG’s previous legacy security solution also was time-consuming and costly for the company’s small IT organization. UNIVEG Trade Italy needed to simplify its security infrastructure with next-generation technology that could deliver the performance, visibility, and threat prevention to ensure business confidence in the network.
UNIVEG Trade Italy considered offerings from Cisco, Check Point, and Fortinet, but its trusted IT network consultant, NGS, recommended the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform. This platform consists of a Next-Generation Firewall, Threat Intelligence Cloud, and Advanced Endpoint Protection. It delivers application, user, and content visibility and control, as well as protection against known and unknown cyberthreats. The Threat Intelligence Cloud provides central intelligence capabilities, and automates the delivery of preventative measures against cyberattacks.
In its initial deployment, UNIVEG Trade Italy installed a pair of Palo Alto Networks PA-500 firewalls on its network, and worked with NGS to deploy a second pair of PA-500 firewalls for UNIVEG Trade Spain, another UNIVEG Group company. Both sites are also activated with Threat Prevention and URL Filtering subscriptions, and will soon be enhanced further with GlobalProtect™ and WildFire®.
Paolo Brunello, UNIVEG Trade Italy’s IT Manager, who also has responsibility for UNIVEG Trade Spain, remarks, “With the help of NGS, implementing the Palo Alto Networks platform was fast, and within a couple of weeks we were operational. The network logic of the PA-500 platforms is quite easy to understand, which allowed the migration to go very smoothly.”
With the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, UNIVEG Trade Italy has effectively stopped malware and other cyberthreats from compromising both Italy’s and Spain’s networks. Brunello’s team now has a whole new degree of visibility of network traffic, and thanks to real-time reporting, the team can quickly resolve issues when they are detected.
“We can now see exactly what users and applications are accessing our networks, and block any unauthorized traffic,” notes Brunello. “This enables us to protect critical enterprise services that are exposed to the Internet with a security level we never had before.”
In addition, eliminating rogue traffic improved bandwidth utilization significantly, and provided UNIVEG Trade Italy’s and UNIVEG Trade Spain’s network with an important performance boost.
Brunello explains, “Because we have such granular control over the traffic on our networks, business applications run faster and remote users can connect without wait times like before. This helps our employees be more productive and ensures that important logistics are carried out efficiently so our customers get the fresh produce they expect.”
Policy management is also much easier using the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform compared to UNIVEG Trade Italy’s previous Cisco firewalls. In fact after just two weeks, the company’s IT team had reduced the time spent managing policies by 30 percent. And with fewer devices overall to manage, UNIVEG Trade Italy expects substantial cost savings.
Brunello concludes, “The Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform provides such a complete and integrated solution that we feel it is the most effective and cost-efficient choice to secure our entire global network against cyberattacks. Other platforms just don’t compare.”
This customer story is available in Italian.