Business Objective and Benefits: To provide secure, reliable and cost effective data sharing between UK and USA offices enabling better customer service together with gains in operating efficiency.

Products and Services used: Check Point VPN-1 Pro, Check Point VPN-1 SmallOffice, Check Point SecureClient , a Nokia IP71security appliance and Presence Professional Services.

This award winning motivational event organiser company operates from offices in the UK and the USA and the staff needed to be able to share a range of IT systems and resources. Presence investigated the then existing infrastructure and the requirements of the users on both sides of the Atlantic and recommended a solution using virtual private networking (VPN).

The system uses Check Point VPN products and Nokia hardware appliances sized appropriately to address the needs of the two local networks to be interconnected. The UK head office controls the day to day operation of the VPN with the Check Point VPN-1 Pro software providing the network management services to administer both the UK and US ends of the network and their associated firewall services. The VPN appliances create secure, encrypted data tunnels for trusted LAN users across the Internet enabling the members of the American team to use corporate systems and resources at head office. As such staff in the States have “self-service” access to central systems even after the close of business in the UK.

Presence is contracted to provide remote technical support for both the UK and US VPN-1 systems and will manage escalation of response if the need arises to ensure the speedy and effective resolution of any support issues.

The outcome for the company is that its staff, particularly those in America, are kept much better informed and are able to provide better customer service because of the improvements in their access to information. The efficiency gains from the reduction of office to office telephone calling and the time consumed by staff on these calls gave the project a very rapid return on investment.