CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CHRIST UNIVERSITYCHRIST gains bespoke
security solution withSophos.
CHRIST, a “Deemed to be University,” ranks among the top private universitiesin India. It was founded as an autonomous university in 1969 and was declareda Deemed to be University in 2008. Today, CHRIST has five campuses, withthree in Bangalore as well as additional campuses in Lavasa and Ghaziabad.
Being a multi-disciplinary university, CHRIST offers graduate, post-graduate,
and doctoral programs in humanities, social sciences, engineering,
management and law to more than 18,000 students located across the fivecampuses. The large number of users and the distributed network require anext-generation firewall that provides comprehensive protection and highconnectivity.

CUSTOMER-AT-A-GLANCECHRIST University
Industry
Education

Websitewww.christuniversity.in
Number of Users
30,000

Sophos Solutions
Sophos XG650 xHA
Sophos XG 550
Sophos XG 430
Sophos CR750iNG-XP x2

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CHRIST UNIVERSITY

Challenges
ÌÌ Lack of a centralized system to manage more than 60
servers across five locations

ÌÌ Difficulty in creating concurrent unique user identities
ÌÌ Difficulty in applying standard security protocol due

Manoj T. Thomas, manager, operations, IT services, atCHRIST says, “Before Sophos came into the picture, ourprevious IT vendor was unable to create user databases
for our 30,000-plus students and staff. We further
required absolute control over the VLAN during exams,
and it was difficult to bring in a differentiated services
code point server for a short period of time.”

to BYOD policy

ÌÌ Website filtering and establishing customized usagepatterns

ÌÌ Inability to control bandwidth and usage for different
levels of usersHow do you know it’s time tosay goodbye to your legacysystem?
An important security requirement of the university
was a secure firewall, which could also act as a control
center for all of its 60 servers across its campuses in
Bangalore, Lavasa, and Ghaziabad. Additionally, theuniversity wanted to create more than 30,000 user
identities, Media Access Control list user rules, andan additional authentication device, which were notpossible with the previous legacy product.
The university further required a robust system that
could handle student and staff devices as part of its
bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy. This need required
unmatched network security that could also seamlessly
integrate with the 60 servers dispersed across different
locations.

What tipped the balance inSophos’ favor?
In 2014, the university initiated a proof of concept, after
which the Sophos solution was selected for its ability
to cater to the university’s requirements. The institution
was extremely satisfied with the initial firewall andhappily upgraded to the advanced Sophos XG series.
“When the university was looking for a cybersecurity
partner, we evaluated a few firewall service providers.
Our requirement was simple. We wanted a nextgeneration, flexible firewall protection system for easy
troubleshooting that could be controlled from a single
control center. Only Sophos could provide this. Thesolution also fit within our budget and, hence, we chose
Sophos,” explains Thomas.
The Sophos Firewall Manager provides powerfulcentralized management for all Sophos firewalls acrossmultiple locations from a single screen. This makes
management of firewall policies and configuration
possible from a single console. It also provides theability for insightful monitoring with a single glance
as well as the possibility for extensive administrativecontrols, such as role-based administration, changecontrol, and logging.

‘Incomparison,the Sophos
firewall madeit easy andgranted fullcontrol within
seconds!’
Manoj T. Thomas
Manager Operations - IT Services
CHRISTCUSTOMER CASE STUDY CHRIST UNIVERSITY

How does the Sophos
solution impact the quality ofeducation?
Sophos offers comprehensive next-generation firewall
protection that can be programmed to create many
databases, block any unknown threats, automatically
respond to incidents, and expose hidden risks on thenetwork with ease.
“With the Synchronized Security platform, Sophos XG
series firewall delivers advanced protection against
new-age threats such as ransomware, cryptomining,bots, worms, and hacks. It imparts great visibility
into the network, users, and applications directlyfrom the control center. From exposing hidden risks
and stopping unknown threats to isolating infected
systems, Sophos firewall supports a powerful unified
security model, which allows us to establish andmanage security from a central location,” adds
Thomas.

Since implementing Sophos firewall solutions, theinstitution can create Media Access Control userbased rules and security, efficiently resolve log viewer
issues, and seamlessly integrate all the servers. The
advanced Sophos XG series firewall provides superior
visibility into risks and threats, and the firewall’s control
center provides in-depth clarity into the network,users, and applications. The XG 550 and 650 are highperformance firewalls, therefore provide protection fora large, distributed, and rapidly expanding educational
institution such as CHRIST. The advanced CPU
technology, which could effortlessly handle use via an
all-in-one solution, fortified the university against theexpanding threat landscape.

‘We are extremely
happy with theSophos solution.
We will also
be evaluatingSophos Endpoint
Protection for
all our locations
shortly.’
Manoj T. Thomas
Manager Operations - IT Services
CHRISTTo find out how Sophos
can provide solutions foryour business, visit www.
sophos.com/products.

Copyright 2019 Sophos Ltd. All rights reserved.
Registered in England and Wales No. 2096520, The Pentagon, Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon, OX14 3YP, UKSophos is a registered trademark of Sophos Ltd. All other product and company names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

2019-09-11 CCS (PC)