Stephens Inc. Selects Enterasys to Power Wired and Wireless Internal Cloud Infrastructure

ANDOVER, Mass., July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterasys, the network infrastructure and security division of Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG, today announced that Stephens Inc., a privately-held financial services firm based in Little Rock, Arkansas, has deployed Enterasys S-Series switches as the 10G backbone of its internal cloud computing infrastructure, guaranteeing highly available application delivery to more than 1,000 users located throughout the United States. Enterasys Wireless controllers and access points, N-Series & C-Series switches, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and simple-to-use management solutions including NMS Policy Manager maintain and secure role-based connectivity for over 3,000 networked devices.

"Prior to Enterasys, our business challenges were reliability, slow application delivery, management, and network support. Our success is highly dependent upon timely and reliable access to critical market and customer data," said Matthew McEwen, vice president at Stephens Inc. "We selected Enterasys solutions for our cloud core, network edge, wireless and network management because they are affordable, easy to manage, compatible with other vendor equipment, and provide the same consistent network user experience, regardless of location."

Enterasys S-Series: Powering the Cloud

McEwen and his IT staff are leveraging Enterasys S-Series switches as the 10G backbone of their internal cloud that deliver mission-critical business applications across the entire company. The Enterasys S-Series delivers a powerful combination of Terabit-class performance along with granular visibility and control over users, services, and applications to meet the increasing demands of today's businesses and enable optimization of key technologies including voice and video, virtualization, and cloud computing.

Enterasys Wireless: Secure, Role-based Access, Anytime, Anywhere

The Enterasys Wireless Portfolio allows Stephens Inc. employees to remotely access business applications and data while offering seamless integrated management of both wired and wireless connectivity. Enterasys access points and wireless controllers deliver cost-effective, highly available connectivity, while giving McEwen's IT staff additional management capabilities, security and planning software, as well as a unique open platform for application integration across the enterprise.

Enterasys NMS Policy Manager and IPS: Securing the Cloud

Stephens Inc. also relies on Enterasys' NMS Policy Manager to manage role-based access of each port and device on the network edge. NMS Policy Manager (also known as NetSight® Policy Manager) centralizes all the policies for users, applications, protocols, VLANs, ports, and data flows. "Of all the technology decisions we made, I am the most pleased with the intuitive NMS solution," McEwen said.  "One of the most recent successes we have had with NMS was a firmware update to about a dozen N-Series switches deployed on the network edge.  We were able to select all the switches with aged firmware and, with a few mouse clicks, update them to the latest firmware--all in less than a half-hour."

Additionally, Stephens Inc. has implemented Enterasys IPS, the advanced Intrusion Prevention Solution that stops attacks at the source of the threat, while proactively protecting against future threats and vulnerabilities.

Today, McEwen and his staff have seen immediate benefits of the Enterasys upgrade. "As we began deploying the Enterasys solution, we immediately noticed better network performance and increased productivity. Our network analysts are spending less time troubleshooting problems, and are now able to focus on developing a better, faster, more secure network," McEwen said. "The Enterasys customer support experience has been top-notch at every phase of the sale and deployment. We feel confident in our network, knowing that Enterasys engineers within GTAC are experts in networking, and we have access to them any time we have a question."

About Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG

Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based architectures to unify communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG includes Cycos and Enterasys Networks.

For more information about Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com.

SOURCE Enterasys