2xMoinsCher.com chooses Stonesoft solutions
to secure and optimise its network
2xMoinsCher.com is an e-commerce platform, founded in March 2001, operated
by the Trokers company. A pioneer in the C2C sector, 2xMoinsCher.com offers everyone –
professionals and private parties alike –, an opportunity to buy and sell practically any type of
new or used object in a friendly, secure environment.
2xMoinsCher.com, which currently has over 3 million members, joined the 3 Suisses International (3Si) group in July 2006. To ensure an optimal user experience for its 3 million unique visitors each month, the website must offer them a highly secure online purchasing process and faultless conditions of connectivity.
Initial considerations
For 2xMoinsCher.com, the search for a solution was conducted in the framework of a global business development project. This project obliged 2xMoinsCher.com to rethink certain components of its IT infrastructure in order to achieve improved conditions of connectivity (through management of incoming traffic), since the number of connections to the site is constantly increasing. Generally speaking, customers connect quite frequently, but for relatively short periods.
For this development project, 2xMoinsCher.com also identified a need to protect access to its various internal networks and protect its website against malicious or unsolicited traffic.
Search for a solution
At the beginning of December 2009,
with the assistance of its integrator Netqost, 2xMoinsCher.com began the search for a solution. But
the company quickly encountered a major obstacle to the search process: in a traditional search for
a solution, it is possible to test the product being considered, but in this case it proved to be
virtually impossible to test the solution.
This constraint is inherent to the e-commerce business. It is virtually impossible to temporarily adopt a new connectivity management solution, and then observe the solution’s performance (or lack of performance), since connectivity is the nerve centre of an e-commerce website. The risks involved in testing are much too high in terms of harm to reputation and effect on availability (and thus on sales volume). For the 2xMoinsCher.com website, Trokers therefore had to have complete confidence in its new supplier and be absolutely convinced that it was making the right decision. Furthermore, the equipment selected needed to be scalable and flexible in order to anticipate a new increase in connectivity needs and respond accordingly.
The website’s architecture manager, Alexis Tondelier, first began by studying the entire range of solutions currently available on the market on his own. He even considered renewing the contract with his current provider of network equipment and adopting an upgraded range of solutions. It was at this point that Netqost, oriented 2xMoinsCher.com towards Stonesoft.
The solution proposed by the Finnish software house stood out from those proposed by its competitors in several ways:
- Its ratio of throughput to number of connections managed
- The quality of its centralised administration console (SMC)
- Performance
Deployment
At the beginning of January 2010, a StoneGate FW-5000L firewall was deployed in an active/passive cluster on 2xMoinsCher.com’s network. The day of the rollout, Netqost assisted with the migration process and helped with configuration in cooperation with the teams of Stonesoft and 2xMoinsCher.com.
Tondelier is even considering the option of active/active clustering in the event of an increase in needs.
The firewall is positioned at the core of the network and manages isolation of and access to the various networks on which different applications are located (proxy, load balancer, web servers, etc.). This firewall manages all traffic coming from the Internet and improves traffic flow (by rejecting illegitimate connections). “We needed a simple but extremely powerful firewall with network access management capabilities,” Tondelier continued.
Benefits and perspectives
According to Tondelier, “There has been considerable improvement in the
connectivity capabilities of the 2xMoinsCher.com website. For the same throughput, the Stonesoft
solution can manage twice as many connections as any other solution. We haven’t found any other
product capable of managing as many connections at this throughput. We would have had to move into
a much higher range, which is not feasible at this time in view of our budgetary constraints. The
throughput/performance ratio was extremely attractive on its own, but we also benefitted from a
full range of additional features – such as the StoneGate Management Center (SMC), and reporting
functions – and this made the difference in the end.”
“The Stonesoft solution met our expectations in full. The firewall not only manages the growing number of connections to our site extremely well, but the various peripheral functions, such as its reporting capabilities, enabled us to optimise our firewall rules and improve our visibility of network traffic,” he concluded.
About Stonesoft
Stonesoft Corporation (NASDAQ OMX: SFT1V) is an innovative provider of integrated network security solutions to secure the information flow of distributed organizations. Stonesoft customers include enterprises with growing business needs requiring advanced network security and always-on business connectivity.StoneGate™ Secure Connectivity Solution unifies firewall, VPN, IPS and SSL VPN blending network security, end-to-end availability and award-winning load balancing into a centrally managed system. The key benefits of StoneGate Secure Connectivity Solution include low TCO, excellent price-performance ratio and high ROI. The StoneGate Virtual Security Solutions protect the network and ensure business continuity in both virtual and physical network environments.
StoneGate Management Center provides unified management for StoneGate Firewall with VPN, IPS and SSL VPN. StoneGate Firewall and IPS work together to provide intelligent defense throughout the enterprise network while StoneGate SSL VPN provides enhanced security for mobile and remote use.
Founded in 1990, Stonesoft Corporation is a global company with corporate headquarters in Helsinki, Finland and Americas headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, visit www.stonesoft.com and http://stoneblog.stonesoft.com.
