PRODUCTS
F5® BIG-IP® Access Policy Manager (APM)
BENEFITS
Identity Federation & SSO
Secure and Managed web access
Offload and simplify authentication
API Protection
CHALLENGES
Desktop virtualization delivery
Secure remote and mobile access
Attica Group, is a leader in the provision of ferry services for passengers and cargo in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, establishing itself as the largest group in Greece in its industry and as the 3rd largest in the Mediterranean. With more than 1,700 employees on land and at sea, Attica Group is among the top shipping providers in Europe, connecting 60 unique destinations with over 20,000 routes per year, carrying more than 7.5 million passengers and over 1.5 million passenger cars and trucks! With the coronavirus pandemic outbreak the company had to find a very fast, easy but mostly safe way to give its staff access to corporate resources for work from home.
Business Challenges
For teams who need to work remotely, some use virtual private networks (VPN) to help stay securely connected to their corporate network and applications. Other may use corporate applications that are deployed to public clouds or that are SaaS-based.
The question for Attica Group was, how the company could ensure that their house-bound and remote workers were being productive, able to access applications that today are located anywhere, from any location, over different devices, while keeping their corporate apps and information secure?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM), F5’s access management solution, was the answer.
Solution
The solution gave Attica Group the opportunity to have a smooth operation immediately. The BIGIP APM by F5 Networks that was implemented together with Pylones, was put into operation in just two days. “Of course, the fact that the F5 BIG-IP infrastructure already existed in our organization played an important role in this Our two teams worked very intensively in order to have a perfect solution, since time was of the essence.” explained Alexandros Bogiatzakis, Systems Operations Manager of Attica Group.
Attica Group ensured access ONLY to the corporate PC of each user, while protecting the rest of the company’s resources, thanks to the Application Tunnel feature provided uniquely by the APM solution. “In case a user tried to connect to a resource of our network, other than the specific PC and application, the effort was nullified.” said Alexandros Bogiatzakis, Systems Operations Manager of Attica Group.
In addition Alexandros Bogiatzakis, Systems Operations Manager of Attica Group mentioned “To date, we have not encountered any malfunction that could not be resolved in a few minutes or that created a problem in the operation of the teams. Product reliability, the architecture we have chosen to implement in our infrastructure and the high training of Pylones engineers are the three key factors of success.”
Benefits
Secure Remote Access to Corporate resources from any network, and from any device.
APM ensures secure, fast network and application access for remote users, while protecting corporate network resources, applications, and sensitive data from malware, theft or hack, and rogue or unauthorized access, leveraging context-aware policies.
Secure Access to Web-based Applications from anywhere, every time
APM proxies organization’s web applications, enabling centralized authentication and authorization, supporting single sign-on (SSO) and federation. In addition ensures that a user’s device adheres to your organization’s approved security posture before allowing access to your network for SSL VPN access, or your web-based apps. And APM’s web access management capabilities are simple to setup, providing a seamless, simple user experience.
Seamless and Secure application Access that leverages a trusted Identity Source
APM’s Identity Aware Proxy delivers seamless, secure application access that leverages a trusted identity source, include Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS); enforces modern authentication – such as identity federation, SSO, and even multi-factor authentication – for all applications, even those that do not natively support modern authentication; and is driven by context- and identity-aware policies, to ensure that only the right users are able to access the right apps at the right time.
“If you look at the possibilities offered by the BIG-IP APM solution one by one, you will find that they are offered – one way or another – by other products on the market as well. The combination of all the possibilities in one platform, with unified management, simultaneous use and smooth operation, is the feature that really makes the BIG-IP APM solution of F5 Networks to stand out from the competition.” says Alexandros Bogiatzakis, Systems Operations Manager of Attica Group.
