Raymond James Financial Selects Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Palo Alto Networks™, the network security company, today announced that Raymond James Financial, Inc. has selected Palo Alto Networks for its legacy firewall migration. Raymond James Financial will use The Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls as part of its overall network protection – including its global client assets – while achieving an unprecedented level of visibility into its network traffic based on internal and external applications and users.

Raymond James is a diversified holding company providing financial services to individuals, corporations and municipalities. Its 6,000 financial advisors serve two million accounts in 2,500 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. With 17,000 users in the United States alone, and many working from remote locations and branch offices around the world, security is paramount to Raymond James Financial.

The ability to more easily satisfy compliance standards and peer deeply into its network to inspect SSL-encrypted traffic for data loss prevention, viruses and malware, as well as firewall manageability and scalability, were key capabilities Raymond James Financial sought in a firewall. After taking a full year to test the performance of firewalls from several vendors in its own live production environment, Raymond James Financial awarded its business to Palo Alto Networks and has since deployed a combination of Palo Alto Networks PA-5060, PA-5050, PA-5020 and PA-200 Series next-generation firewall.

"Seeing how well the firewall performed in our production environment, and the ease with which we were able to set up and run our policies on our network in just one day, really sold our team on Palo Alto Networks," said Andy Zolper chief information and security officer for Raymond James Financial. "As a financial services firm, we are keenly aware of the sensitivity of the data running on our network every day. We need a solution that ensures our clients' assets are protected while at the same time ensuring high performance access to applications that help our business run efficiently. For us, the Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall is absolutely the right solution."

Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls provide granular visibility of threats and better control of Internet applications. It isolates and protects data through security policies that are based on the user or group identity from within Active Directory. The user and group identity is then tied directly to a specific application, and the application can then be inspected for threats and unauthorized data transfer. This level of granular control is unmatched by any firewall solution on the market. The Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall is unique in its ability to accurately identify and control applications by user, scan content to stop threats, and prevent data leakage – all within a single network device. 

"The breadth and volume of applications crossing enterprise networks like that of Raymond James Financial makes a 'block-or-nothing' approach a liability to the business because it fails to take into account the benefits that many applications can provide," said Rene Bonvanie, chief marketing officer at Palo Alto Networks. "Palo Alto Networks is pleased that Raymond James Financial thoroughly evaluated several competing products and concluded that our next-generation firewall technology can uniquely safely enable applications on their corporate networks while achieving the necessary performance."  

About Raymond James Financial, Inc.

Raymond James Financial (NYSE-RJF) is a Florida-based diversified holding company providing financial services to individuals, corporations and municipalities through its subsidiary companies. Its four principal wholly owned broker/dealers, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC; Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC; Morgan Keegan & Co., Inc., member FINRA/SIPC (branded as Raymond James | Morgan Keegan) and Raymond James Ltd., member Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada/CIPF, have over 6,000 financial advisors serving 2 million accounts in over 2,500 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. In addition, total client assets are approximately $375 billion, of which approximately $40 billion are managed by the firm's asset management subsidiaries.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks™ (NYSE: PANW) is the network security company. Its innovative platform allows enterprises, service providers, and government entities to secure their networks and safely enable the increasingly complex and rapidly growing number of applications running on their networks. The core of Palo Alto Networks' platform is its Next-Generation Firewall, which delivers application, user, and content visibility and control integrated within the firewall through its proprietary hardware and software architecture. Palo Alto Networks' products and services can address a broad range of network security requirements, from the data center to the network perimeter, as well as the distributed enterprise, which includes branch offices and a growing number of mobile devices. Palo Alto Networks' products are used by more than 9,000 customers in over 100 countries. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.

SOURCE Palo Alto Networks