CFDT Relies on Stonesoft to Secure its Network

The CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail) is a general confederation of French trade unions. It is recognized by the French government and, with over 800,000 members, one of France’s largest and oldest trade union confederations. Its mission is to represent workers and protect their social benefits.

The Challenge

Located in Paris, the CFDT headquarters contain all its administrative offices and a large part of its organizational units in three separate buildings. The organization has an extensive computing infrastructure and network, which brings a number of network control and management issues. Power outages, performance optimization problems and substantial costs for system operation, updating and scaling, are also common in this type of organization.

The network architecture between the CFDT buildings is maintained via an inter-LAN connection. However, the connection lacked an endpoint access control policy. In addition, prohibitive maintenance costs prompted the CFDT to seek for a more beneficial and cost-efficient solution.

The CFDT conducted a thorough review of its existing network architecture and prepared a detailed project specifications document. Considering the general configuration of the CFDT headquarters, the objective was to secure the entire network by using a reliable, best-in-class solution. The new solution had to be scalable, cost-efficient, and easy to use and configure. It was also crucial  that the solution would provide a clear overview of the network and all the products used to secure it. In addition, load balancing was required in order to ensure business continuity.

The CFDT turned to Iniflux, one of its system integrator partners, to find a product that would meet their needs. The main criterion was the ability to administer multiple firewalls with a single security solution, from one location. Iniflux introduced CFDT to StoneGate’s centralized management system, explaining the benefits of the solution, particularly regarding the administration and management of the various geographic locations. Also the attractive acquisition and maintenance costs of the StoneGate products were recognized. After the modelling stage, Stonesoft was selected to equip the CFDT headquarters with its StoneGate products.

The Deployment

The technical teams of Iniflux and CFDT proceeded to deploy the solution at the CFDT headquarters in Paris, which include the largest portion of the network. Replacing a single firewall of a competing solution, they set up a firewall cluster with a simpler and more powerful management system. This configuration also supports connections to other locations via the CFDT Intranet.

Since the Paris location was responsible for managing and administering all of the other CFDT locations, the StoneGate Management Centre (SMC) was installed. The most delicate part of the deployment process at the headquarters was the adaptation of the new security rules to meet CFDT’s needs.

The other CFDT locations were equipped on a dedicated line using a star topology between locations. To strengthen their security, each location was equipped with a cluster of StoneGate SG-250 appliances. After the security rules were deployed and the connection with the administration console was established, the various locations were up and running in less than a day.

The Bierville location in the Essonne, where the CFDT holds many of its large meetings, required some special measures to optimize its network security. Since the Bierville network is not directly connected to headquarters, it has a secure site-to-site VPN link via the Internet to provide access to the CFDT headquarters’ internal resources. With StoneGate Management Center, a secure link of this type can be established quite simply, with just a few mouse clicks from the management console.

All locations use the Stonesoft IPS probe functionalities. These probes detect any intrusions and generate log reports to alert technical staff. This constant protection is provided transparently without hindering users in any way.

The deployment was very smooth, thanks to the support provided by Stonesoft pre-sales. The Stonesoft engineer transferred his competence to the technical staff of CFDT, assisting them with the migration from the existing products to the Stonesoft solution. The whole migration project was completed in just two days.

Benefits and Perspectives

Iniflux provides regular IT facilities management services for the Stonesoft products, performing audits and generating log reports. The StoneGate Management Center SMC and log servers are currently running on the same server, but plans are being made to separate them for increased autonomy.

SMC provides simple, transparent and intuitive management of all security appliances. All products are visible on the same level, providing a comprehensive overview and helping the administrator to identify management needs rapidly. Both the CFDT and Iniflux, were pleased with the benefits brought by StoneGate Management Center. CFDT was also impressed by the attractive maintenance cost compared to numerous comparable solutions on the market.

The CFDT was fully satisfied with the Stonesoft solutions, which met its needs for protection, accessibility and centralized management of the distributed network. 

The platform’s attractive maintenance costs and manageability were strong arguments for selecting Stonesoft products.
In addition, Stonesoft’s technical and support teams are always ready to step in with support and assistance.
- Mr. Alain Chetboun, IT Director of CFDT


About Stonesoft

Stonesoft Corporation (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.

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.