Securing Centralized Communication

As organizations get automated and implement high value IT solution in their
infrastructure, security has emerged as one of the primary concern areas. The
matter becomes more critical when it is a government organi­zation we are
talking about.

New Delhi-based Velocis Systems was approached by a government organization
that was struggling to control the communication system that was being used by
its employees. To make their communication system stronger and highly secured,
the government unit decided to have a fully secure internal unified
communication system with complete record of utilization.

Secured Communication System

“Our objective was to design multi-location based secured communication
network. The prime objective that was assigned to us was to address the
govern­ment organization's security need at various level ie perimeter, end
point, identity management, data theft protection, compliance management etc. We
have deployed the project with our best available solution,” said Sanjaya Saxena,
Director Operations, Velocis Systems.

 The task that Velocis had to accomplish was to design comprehensive security
solution to protect the network of the organization from internal as well as
external threats. Apart from centralizing communi­cation system, Velocis was
also asked to centralized network management, QOS deployment for unified
communication, ensure high availability of the network and enhance the data
center to be able to host all servers and storage.

Hurdles on way

In a solution providing business, the task of implementing a project is
enveloped with certain challenges and the solution provider should have the
tools to overcome them in a smooth and efficient manner. The initial challenge
that Velocis had to face was the decentralized resources. Another problem that
the solution provider was facing was the localized data storage at various
locations that was leading towards risk of data loss and unavailability of data
for analysis purpose. The client of the solution provider was interested to
define and deploy uniform backup and security policy as per the well-known
industry standards.

The method

The solution for the government organization was designed and built
considering the perimeter security, parameters and end point security. Velocis
took the task of deploying the project in a phased manner. The first step was to
understand the pain points of the client, their actual requirements and the
network limitation. The task was jointly executed between Velocis and the
project head of government organization. The joint analysis helped the company
to gather information about current network scenario and products. Thereafter, a
detailed survey was performed for information gathering related to current setup
and its limitations. The solution was designed considering the unified
communication as turnkey security solution.

“In unified communication we designed and deployed VoIP and video
communication system that offers completely encrypted communication on the
network. Mailing solution has been deployed with mail tracking features as per
the guidelines provided by the concerned department of the government
organization,” shared Saxena.

The mailing solution designed by Velocis allowed encrypted mail communication
for end user ensuring that no changes has been made during the transit period.

“In security we designed perimeter security parameters and end point
security. At perimeter, firewall and IPS was placed to safeguard the network
from external attacks. To secure the network from internal threats end point
security measures like HIPS, physical port security, biometric authenti­cation
has been deployed,” he further shared.

The Velocis team also designed and deployed centrali­zed network management
and monitoring policy and gave rigorous training to the staff members to ensure
smooth operation. They further ensured that the members of their clients could
be self-dependent to run the system. For ease of manage­ment, detailed
step-by-step configuration and trouble­shooting document were handed over to the
IT team of the client.

A wide array of technology and components were used to ensure an efficient
and effective solution. Modems, routers and switches were used for
connec­tivity, while for communication, VoIP, video and mailing solution were
deployed. For security purpose perimeter, end point security, three factor
authentication, compliance management and data theft protection was implemented.
Blade servers, SAN solution and backup solution were deployed for server and
storage purpose. To ensure better network manage­ment, solutions like asset
management and OS release management were implemented along with centralized
moni­toring, fault management and alert generation. The total cost of the
project-Rs 6.5 crore.

Mission accomplished

After the project was fully deployed, it enabled high availability at infra
level and link level for the client. It also allowed secured communication
across multiple locations and bandwidth availability as per application and user
priority. Velocis also enabled backup policy in place to ensure data
availability for future reference and high security that defines the monitoring
and audit process that a government department is supposed to have.

Amrita Tejasvi

(amritat@cybermedia.co.in)