Fire safety specialist improves cyber security

Protec Fire Detection has attempted to improve its business continuity and communications strategy through the deployment of technology developed by Opengear.

According to the latter company, its products deliver “secure, resilient access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, even when the network is down.” This includes remote management of network devices and data centres, with Protec deploying its ACM 7004-2 product in particular.

A spokesperson for Opengear said: “Our Smart-OOB appliances are connected to Firewalls at each site to allow for remote monitoring and configuration, using the Lighthouse 5 centralised management platform.”

Protec IT manager Vinod Varkey said: “We already use a combination of leased lines and VPN to connect all our sites. We wanted to improve our business continuity position through the implementation of an out-of-band remote access solution that would automatically failover if we had any issues with WAN connections.”

“The installation process was relatively straightforward and we have conducted a number of failover tests to our out-of-band 4G connection. We still use our VPN as the primary method of monitoring and updating our firewalls, but Opengear provides us with an additional layer of security that we know we can rely on if there are any issues at a remote site.”

Protec was founded in 1968, since becoming what Opengear claims to be the largest independent fire detection manufacturer in the UK.