Fortinet > Case Studies > Fortinet Enhances Security Infrastructure for Rapidly Growing City of Mission

Fortinet Enhances Security Infrastructure for Rapidly Growing City of Mission

Technology Category

Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet
Networks & Connectivity - Routers & Bridges

Applicable Industries

Cities & Municipalities
Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Smart City Operations
Tamper Detection

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

The city of Mission is a picturesque community located in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. It is a bedroom community located about an hour outside of Vancouver, B.C., making it an attractive place for people who work in Vancouver but prefer to live in a quieter, more affordable area. The city is steeped in tradition and First Nations heritage, and is home to many artists and artisans. With a current population of around 41,000 residents, the city is growing rapidly, with projections indicating its population will double over the next quarter century. The city is always diligent about optimizing its use of tax dollars, with a focus on expanding the industrial and commercial tax base to shift the homeowner tax burden and attract new residents and businesses.

The Challenge

The city of Mission, located in British Columbia, Canada, is a rapidly growing community with a population projected to double over the next quarter century. The city's IT team, led by Chris Knowles, Manager of Information and Telecommunications Systems, is tasked with managing networking, security, telecommunications, and other technology needs across the city’s 17 locations. However, the team is small and does not have enough staff to dedicate most of their time to security remediation. The city was running security solutions from eight different vendors, leading to a complex infrastructure that made it difficult to achieve security goals. In 2020, an external security audit indicated that while the team was doing well in some areas, a network redesign could provide better resiliency and streamline security.

The Solution

The city of Mission engaged Vancouver-based Wirefire Solutions Inc. to develop a vendor-neutral network design that would simplify management and visibility into security events. After considering three proposals, the city chose Fortinet for its integrated products, management simplicity, and efficient transition process. The city worked with local provider IT Blueprint to deploy FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) and FortiSwitch enterprise switches. They created a new network that ran in parallel with the legacy network, gradually moving end-users over to the new network and deploying FortiAP access points and FortiWeb, Fortinet’s web application firewall. The city also rolled out the FortiClient endpoint solution for VPN connectivity, endpoint vulnerability scanning, and other endpoint protection features.

Operational Impact

The Fortinet solutions have not only improved the city's security infrastructure but have also simplified its management. All the products have a familiar look and feel, and they communicate with one another, providing centralized logging and a single pane of glass for issue tracking. FortiAnalyzer alerts the team when a security incident requires their attention, while FortiManager simplifies firewall management, ensuring consistent firewall policies and enabling quick onboarding of new locations. The city is now planning to replace a legacy phone system with a FortiVoice Secure Unified Communications solution and is evaluating Fortinet protection for its operational technology systems.

Quantitative Benefit

The transition to Fortinet solutions is saving the city of Mission around 15% on total cost of ownership of the security infrastructure.
The Fortinet solutions have substantially improved the efficacy of the city’s security infrastructure.
The Fortinet solutions have dramatically reduced the complexity of managing security day to day.