Customer Needs

• Flexible Solution • 100% Visibility • Analysis of multiple segments • No data / packet loss • Non-intrusive solution

Solution Components

• 10/100 Critical Multi-port TAPs • Standard IDS Probe • Cisco Ethernet Switch

Results

• Company requirements matched exactly • Excellent network visibility • Flexible solution allowing multiple monitoring • "Invisible" IDS upgrades • Zero network degradation • Simple installation

“The Network Critical TAPs performed exactly as we wanted and therefore gave us the flexibility to deploy our solutions as we required.” Stuart Ganney Principal Network Analyst, Skandia

About Skandia

• Founded in Sweden in 1855. • Over £57 billion under management. • Operations in over 20 countries • International Investments Awards '06:    Best International Life Group, Best Offshore Life Product • Money Marketing Awards: Company of the Year • Skandia has won twenty-three 5 Star honours for its life, pension and investment service.

“The scenario in which Skandia have deployed the Critical Multi-port TAPs once again highlights the flexibility and ease of use of our products.” Alastair Hartrup Managing Director, Network Critical Solutions Ltd

Customer Experience: Skandia

Leading investment company selects multi-port CriticalTAPs to aid IDS deployment

Skandia UK is a leading provider of long-term savings with innovative solutions for investments, pensions, and protection. The Company's wealth of experience has earned itself a reputation for excellence for its approach to product design, administration and service.

Skandia UK constantly challenges what the market has to offer, believing that you should have the freedom to choose financial products tailored to your individual needs, which are then able to be adapted as these needs change.

Skandia products are underpinned by the MultiManager approach pioneered over 20 years ago, offering you a range of leading external fund managers. While this approach is much imitated, Skandia's expertise and commitment has ensured the Company’s reputation as the leaders in MultiManager investment.

Skandia UK is part of the worldwide Skandia group headquartered in Sweden, where it is the oldest quoted company on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. After 150 years of business, it has grown to be one of Europe’s largest insurance companies, with operations in over 20 countries.

Business Objectives

As part of their initial security deployment strategy, Skandia had a requirement to monitor multiple network segments with a single IDS sensor. Additional key factors for the business were that the solution needed to guarantee that there would be no “cross over” of the traffic from network segment to segment, 100% visibility of all the data, as well as no degradation to the corporate network.

Simple Plug 'n' Play

As a result of the key business requirements, it was determined by Skandia that the most effective way of meeting all its deployment needs was to use Tapping Technology and, as a result, they selected the Network Critical multi-port 10/100 TAP as their chosen product.

By utilising CriticalTAPs to “mirror” the data, in conjunction with the SPAN capabilities of the Cisco Ethernet switches, Skandia was able to analyse all the necessary network segments as well as provide themselves with additional monitoring capability if required.

Discussing the implementation of the CriticalTAPs, Stuart Ganney, Principle Network Analyst for Skandia, said “Installing the TAPs really was a simple plug ‘n’ play exercise and, once implemented, they did exactly what we wanted, giving us all the flexibility we needed.”

Moving Forward

As Skandia implement further IDS solutions across the business, the Company ha indicated that it will again look to utilise Network Critical TAPs, along with other proven components from the initial deployment, within its future system development.