Canadian Reseller Office Solutions Standardizes on SonicWALL to Protect Student Data in 100 Schools

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- SonicWALL, Inc., a leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced that Canadian reseller Office Solutions Inc. (OSI) has helped approximately 100 private and public primary and secondary schools in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan standardize on SonicWALL's Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution for storage, backup and disaster recovery. As the Alberta Department of Education tracks student development from kindergarten through grade 12, grade-to-grade data continuity is critical. If disrupted, it can potentially impact a student's progress. With SonicWALL CDP, OSI helps schools in the Prairie Provinces backup, store and recover student data that was lost due to user error, deletion, malicious attacks, faulty hardware, theft or unforeseen disasters.

"There are a myriad of security and data protection solutions available, but when it comes to self-insuring a school division's data, the SonicWALL CDP product line has proven its value time and time again," said Bill Stewart, VP Professional Services at OSI. "SonicWALL CDP offers multiple levels of data resiliency that allow a single file, a single computer or a single location to be completely restored. It has become a valuable tool that helps us maintain one of our most critical assets -- the integrity of the data of our students."

Securing Student Data

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, OSI provides network security, storage and data backup solutions to the educational market in the country's Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It also partners with its sister organization, Orion Software, to provide student collaboration and information management systems, which include a wide series of tools ranging from email, instant messaging to demographics, grade books, homework assignments, learning plans and attendance marks.

The schools in Western Canada are geographically dispersed, in some cases covering regions that are thousands of square miles in size. Because students, parents, teachers and administrators access the student information system as the main form of communication, it is imperative that the data is accessible, protected and securely stored. In addition, the schools have mixed computing environments.

Continues Stewart: "We needed to offer a solution to the educational market that was compatible with both computing environments, and also in compliance with the Canadian Privacy Act."

With SonicWALL CDP, OSI now has a complete end-to-end backup and recovery solution for these schools. The solution provides flexible disaster recovery options including Offsite Data Backup, Site-to-Site Data Backup and Local Archiving, as well as Bare Metal Recovery of complete systems, including operating systems, files, applications, databases and settings, in just minutes. Should a local file or workstation be destroyed, the entire file or workstation can be restored.

SonicWALL serves as the data protection and disaster recovery solution that helps OSI protect the approximately 100 public and private schools in its network with:

• Backup and storage of heterogeneous networks: SonicWALL CDP supports the most popular operating systems, including Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Replication, archiving and backup both onsite and offsite: Converting from an old backup tape system, OSI has recreated and restored all of the schools' legacy files and is now able to archive and restore student data regardless of location. This functionality is critical to ensure continuity and access to student data as school changes and advancements occur.
• Hosted solutions for smaller schools: With CDP, SonicWALL Global Management System (GMS) and the Network Security Appliance (NSA) 2400 series firewall, OSI is able to offer a hosted solution for smaller schools (fewer than 3,000 students) that don't have sufficient infrastructure. Leveraging the cloud computing environment, stored data can be recovered and replicated very quickly, even within minutes, depending on the amount of data.

In addition to CDP, OSI has deployed SonicWALL TZ network security appliances and NSA firewalls for advanced multi-layer network security. The SonicWALL TZ network security appliances protect student networks against risks, such as viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, phishing attacks, emerging threats and Internet misuse. Parents and students can also securely and remotely access the student network anywhere, anytime. SonicWALL NSAs act as a firewall and content filter that blocks porn, MySpace, Facebook and other social media Web sites.

"The ease of implementation coupled with a knowledgeable support team has made SonicWALL our solution of choice, particularly when sensitive student data must absolutely be protected from being lost or destroyed," said Stewart. "Recovery time has been reduced to hours instead of days or weeks."

For more information about SonicWALL CDP solutions, go to:

http://www.sonicwall.com/us/products/backup_and_recovery.html

For more information about the SonicWALL suite of products, go to:

http://www.sonicwall.com/us/products/solutions/Solutions_Enterprise.html

About SonicWALL, Inc.

Guided by its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, SonicWALL develops advanced intelligent network security and data protection solutions that adapt as organizations evolve and as threats evolve. Trusted by small and large enterprises worldwide, SonicWALL solutions are designed to detect and control applications and protect networks from intrusions and malware attacks through award-winning hardware, software and virtual appliance-based solutions. For more information, visit http://www.sonicwall.com/.

NOTE: SonicWALL is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows are registered trademarks of their respective companies. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE SonicWALL, Inc.