2 page Case Study - Posted 11/28/2006

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Del Monte Foods

Del Monte Gains Security, Ease of Use, with Solution for Mission-Critical Portal

As Del Monte gets ready to upgrade its document sharing and collaboration environment to Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007, it also plans to upgrade the security for that mission-critical environment to Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for SharePoint®. The solution’s five simultaneous antivirus engines help Del Monte prevent virus outbreaks, while integration with existing Windows® based products make it easy to use.

Business Needs

Del Monte Foods knows you get ahead and stay ahead by making innovation and quality your top concerns. Over the last century, the name Del Monte has meant the highest quality food products in categories from produce to seafood to pet products and more.

Forefront Security for SharePoint is going to help me sleep better at night. It lets me spend more time doing my job and less time worrying about the security of our collaboration portals.  Jonathan Wynn Business Lead for Strategic and Capacity Planning Del Monte

Del Monte used SharePoint Portal Server to consolidate four formerly separate intranet sites into a single, comprehensive intranet. That intranet enables employees throughout the company’s global operations to collaborate and share documents.

Sharing documents through SharePoint Portal Server can help relieve pressure on the company’s e-mail system. And the use of SharePoint Portal Server to store documents helps preserve Del Monte intellectual property that otherwise would be kept on local hard drives and potentially lost.

All of this makes SharePoint Portal Server a mission-critical part of Del Monte’s success. “SharePoint Portal Server has delivered big dividends and positioned us for the future,” says Jonathan Wynn, Business Lead for Strategic and Capacity Planning at Del Monte. “Everyone uses the portal.”

So as Del Monte plans its upgrade to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, it was also confronted with the question of how to upgrade its SharePoint Server security. “There’s always the risk that someone will upload an infected file from his home laptop or that we’ll get a virus from an external partner sending us documents,” says Wynn.

Solution

Del Monte didn’t have to look far for the answer to that question. Along with the new version of SharePoint Server, it’s planning to deploy Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint, which helps protect SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services environments against the latest viruses, worms, and inappropriate content.

Forefront Security for SharePoint is also the successor to the Microsoft Antigen solution that Del Monte already uses, and it’s one of a planned range of Microsoft Forefront products that will help protect ever-larger aspects of a company’s Microsoft-based infrastructure.

Forefront Security for SharePoint ships with multiple scan engines from industry-leading vendors and provides content controls to help businesses protect their SharePoint collaboration servers from documents containing malicious code, confidential information, and inappropriate content. 

Del Monte is testing a prerelease version of Forefront Security for SharePoint as part of a pilot of a prerelease version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The proof-of-concept in the company’s Quality Assurance department is examining the use of extensible workflow processes to support rapid ingredient changes in the recipes of Del Monte pet food products. The test is running on a Hewlett-Packard DL360 computer.

In its proof-of-concept, Del Monte is using Forefront Security for SharePoint with its integrated five antivirus scan engines to simultaneously check files as they enter and leave the SharePoint Server site. It is also using the solution’s keyword filtering capability to check for content that runs afoul of the company’s Human Resources regulations.

The company’s broader SharePoint Server environment consists of two load-balanced front-end computers and a clustered pair of database computers running Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database software. All traffic entering or leaving the SharePoint site runs through a pair of load-balanced computers running Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006, in a security-process called full SSL (secure socket layer) bridging.

Benefits

Wynn says the Del Monte test of Forefront Security for SharePoint has confirmed the company’s plans to deploy it across the company’s SharePoint Server infrastructure once the final release is available.

“Forefront Security for SharePoint is going to help me sleep better at night,” says Wynn. “It lets me spend more time doing my job and less time worrying about the security of our collaboration portals.”

Not that that was much of a surprise to him. “I knew it was right for our business,” says Wynn. “We had a great experience with Antigen and I knew that Microsoft was only going to make it better with the Forefront release. We haven’t had a single virus incident or a single problem with the software. I don’t spend time baby-sitting it. It just works.”

Wynn attributes part of that ease of use to the software’s ability to integrate with Del Monte’s existing Microsoft-based environment. “Forefront Security for SharePoint fits seamlessly with our existing security technologies, including Windows Server® 2003 Active Directory® services and ISA Server. That leverages and extends our existing investment in Windows®-based security.”

Beyond that, Wynn cites the solution’s ease of use. Installing and configuring the software was a “no brainer,” according to Wynn. “Forefront Security for SharePoint is very easy to set up,” says Wynn. “The administrative console gives you a complete view of your environment at all times. You just choose the scan engines and a few other parameters, and you’re ready to rock and roll.”

Those multiple scan engines provide the biggest benefit of the solution, according to Wynn. “Why would I want to settle for a single scan engine when Forefront Security for SharePoint gives me the ability to choose five simultaneous engines from the leading vendors?” he says. “They’re updating continuously, so no matter which is first to address a new threat, it’s going to be incorporated into the solution. That gives me my best chance at stopping any new outbreak that may come along.”

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Document published November 2006