The Little Geeni

Filtrona Extrusion implemented a network redesign and network security solutions to guarantee uninterrupted business processes at sites across the United States and Mexico.
“Outsourcing seems like a sexy alternative for a lot of problems, but turning the management of your mission-critical infrastructure over to a third party is pretty scary,” says Jeff White, corporate director of IT for Filtrona Extrusion. When Jeff White joined Filtrona Extrusion as corporate IT director, the company was operating a single threaded network with mixed traffic mission-critical and non-mission critical traffic running side-by-side, with no way to separate or prioritize the two. In addition, the company experienced network performance problems and increasing amounts of downtime at its facility in Mexico. Because its manufacturing facilities run 24/7 and do not always have on-site technical resources available when there is a problem, the company needed a better solution.
“You just never know when things are going to happen, from a backhoe digging up a fiber cable or a more significant outage, and these situations were shutting down an entire facility,” says White. “Because the network is critical to all areas of our business, we needed to implement a fully redundant network to reconcile problems automatically and ensure we could remain up and running, no matter what the situation.”
Filtrona Extrusion is one of the largest manufacturers of extruded plastic profiles, sheets and specialty tubes in the United States. The company manufactures more than 40,000 different products for medical, merchandising, aviation, transportation, traffic, lighting, fencing and custom plastic industries. Its products range from catheter tubes, traffic posts and cones, plastic sheeting for fluorescent lights, air-conditioning ducts in commercial jets, and outdoor furniture.
All of Filtrona Extrusion’s business and manufacturing processes rely heavily on its managed network services. The company’s most critical business application is an enterprise resource-planning (ERP) system that runs on a centralized server in the corporate headquarters in Atlanta, with a standby server replicated in real time and located at a manufacturing facility in Tacoma, Wash. The ERP system manages sales, manufacturing, purchasing, shipping and receiving, accounting, and quality information for all locations, including additional manufacturing facilities in Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Monterrey, Mexico.
White uses a custom simple network-management protocol system to pull data off the routers directly in order to monitor the circuits and overall network performance.
Since plastic is a commodity product, Filtrona Extrusion must maintain complete visibility of its inventory at all times to ensure purchasing decisions can be made at the most advantageous price. Losing sight of inventory levels for as little as a few hours can prevent the company from taking advantage of spot-buy opportunities or force it to use a more-expensive, higher-grade of plastic than is required to fulfill an order for a customer. Moreover, if the ERP system is down, the company is unable to record quality data during the manufacturing process. Without the quality data, there is no way to certify that the product meets the requirements specified by the customer, and without the certifications, the product cannot ship.
“Our whole planning system depends on inventory,” says White. “Without it, we don’t know what materials to buy or how much to purchase for existing orders, which creates some very significant business issues that can cost the company tens of millions of dollars.”
White’s first step after joining the company was to evaluate the effectiveness of his outsourced providers. He needed to understand what the current providers had done, and what they could do moving forward to help him meet the company’s strategic objectives.

Computer Security Bulletproof, Network

In order to minimize network penetration vulnerabilities and reduce the risks of attacks, you will need to employ the services of a network security consultant. A security consultant could help your IT personnel in managing company networks. Security trainings can also be provided by a security consultant especially if your company is deploying a new network security solution.

However, it is not easy to find a network security consultant nowadays. As the security industry consolidated, numerous consultancy firms have been integrated into the business of large security companies. Your choices now are limited to those giant security companies, which could be very expensive, or get the services of a regional security consultant that operates near your company premises.

The Advantages of Getting a Local Network Security Consultant

Hiring a security consultant that operates near your company headquarters is cost beneficial. Security consulting provided by giant companies could involve big overhead expenses. By hiring a regional security consultant, your company could get expert security services without hurting corporate financials.

A regional security consultant can also deploy faster troubleshooting services precisely because they operate near where your servers are located. Fast service is a big advantage because attacks and penetration problems can happen too quickly. A delayed solution could mean lots of trouble for your network.

Normally, a regional security consultant can provide personalized service. That’s because these local consultants work for firms that have relatively small client base. So each security consultant or expert service providers will be able to offer longer and dedicated services in order to keep your company in their accounts.

How to Choose the Best Security Consultant

Research is important in order to find the best security consultant in your locality. You need to double check the credentials and expertise of a security consultant and determine if he/she is the right one for the job.

You should also look for a security consultant that has extensive experience in network security deployments, administrations, and troubleshooting. Look for references and perform inquiries with other companies that previously employed the services of your target security consultant.

Important Steps before Hiring a Security Consultant

Before you hire a security consultant, you have to determine which area of your network needs security improvements or upgrades. This is to ensure that you can hire the right security consultant with the proper expertise for your company’s needs.

For example, if you need to upgrade the security of your client applications and mail servers, then a consultant that focuses on this area should be your logical choice.

There are also consultants that can provide comprehensive services to general security issues confronting a company. On the other hand a network design security consultant could provide valuable help in building a network or managing each component of your network for optimization purposes. These consultants can also provide trainings for your IT staff on matters of general network security.

Getting the services of consultancy firms performing network security could enhance not just the productivity of your network but also improve its integrity. A security consultant could help in developing measures that can protect your network from vulnerabilities and security risks.

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