Topaz Energy and Marine is a leading oilfield services company providing marine and engineering solutions to the global energy industry. Based in Dubai, the company has a primary focus on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and the Caspian Sea countries. The marine division operates approximately 100 off-shore vessels.
It has an in house IT team of 15 people delivering technology services to 16 office locations around the globe including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Brazil, all of which are connected through VPN tunnels. Topaz deployed Dell SonicWALL Network Security, Email Security, and Backup and Recovery solutions, resulting in greater performance, reliability, and manageability.
The challenge
One of the main problems faced by Topaz was inconsistent bandwidth, which affected the company’s work flow, and employee access to critical data. Previously, Topaz deployed disparate firewall and VPN connectivity solutions, which were complex, difficult to manage and costly to scale. This left the Topaz network vulnerable to viruses and spam attacks that caused periods of downtime and hours of precious time spent troubleshooting and fixing problems.
Additionally, Topaz was in danger of losing business critical information. The constant struggle with managing network bandwidth and security had to be addressed quickly as the company was in a growth phase and needed to extend its network service across its growing global footprint. “Having deployed and experimented with many other solutions out there in the market, I was very unhappy with their complexities when deploying, upgrading, managing across our corporate network and scaling,” said Sanjay Kumar, IT Manager for Topaz Energy and Marine. “So when we deployed Dell SonicWALL appliances as a trial in 2004, I was very impressed with the results and decided to engage Dell SonicWALL on a broader scale.”
Initially, Topaz deployed SonicWALL Pro Series firewalls in two locations and, within a year, across all offices globally. Topaz then upgraded the Pro Series to Dell SonicWALL E-Class Network Security Appliance (NSA) E5500, and NSA 4500, 3500 and 2400 Next-Generation Firewalls, all of which are centrally managed at its headquarters in Dubai.
Topaz also expanded its Dell SonicWALL portfolio to include Dell SonicWALL ESA Email Security (ESA) with 1,000 mailbox licenses. The solution offers comprehensive, effective and scalable email security for enterprise environments. Powerful yet easy to manage, the Dell SonicWALL Email Security combines anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing capabilities with content filtering and outbound email management, preventing leaks of confidential information and violations of regulatory compliance law.
ESA solutions were deployed at the head office in Dubai and at their Qatar office as a back-up. “We were especially happy with how Dell SonicWALL firmware was upgraded automatically, when it was released. This meant that our systems are always up to date and robust,” continued Kumar. Over the years, Topaz developed a system where each office had two Internet connections: one lease line for VPN and a second line for Internet access.
The lease lines piped 12 Mbps at each site, while the ADSL lines were between 40 and 100 Mbps based on local connectivity and capacity. Social media sites were blocked and rules were set based on management requirements and decisions. In 2008, Topaz deployed Dell SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection (CDP) 6080 backup and recovery appliances.
The result
Due to Dell SonicWALL’s GUI, the deployment was quick to roll out an easy to manage. Subsequently, bandwidth performance improved markedly, leaving plenty of room to scale. In 2010 Topaz implemented Dell SonicWALL’s ES 5500 NSA series at their headquarters in Dubai as well as its 3500 and in 2012 implemented 4500, all of which are managed centrally at the head office.
Now, thanks to Dell SonicWALL, Topaz is able to effectively communicate with their global offices through a distributed network. “Topaz is a true case study for the smart and effective use of Dell SonicWALL technologies. The IT team utilized a range of our appliances to deliver a stable network environment across its offices worldwide and yield tangible business benefits embodied in high employee efficiency,” said Shanawaz Sheikh, Dell SonicWALL’s Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
The future
Dell SonicWALL is currently working on extending the Topaz network to include hand-held devices. Plans are underway for Topaz to install Dell SonicWALL Aventail E-Class SSL VPN, which provides users of Windows, Windows Mobile, Apple Mac OS, iOS, Linux, and Google Android devices an ‘in-office’ experience.
This will give easy and secure access to executives who are constantly travelling and enable them to keep abreast of important news. Dell SonicWALL will also assist Topaz in its global expansion into other upcoming locations in different regions.
