Case Study: California Public Utilities Commission achieves stronger security and resilient remote access with Fortinet

State Agency Significantly Improves Security and Reduces Costs with the Fortinet Security Fabric

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is a state agency that regulates utilities and transportation providers in California and needed to protect sensitive consumer data while replacing aging firewalls. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the challenge by forcing rapid VPN expansion for remote staff, exposing gaps in integration, creating a single point of failure in the legacy VPN gateway, and imposing heavy manual work to manage switch port and endpoint access—while also meeting audit and compliance requirements.

CPUC deployed the Fortinet Security Fabric—HA pairs of FortiGate NGFWs, FortiNAC, FortiClient EMS, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiGuard services—to centralize and automate security. The integrated solution delivered seamless failover and more reliable VPN, automated access control and endpoint protection, better visibility and reporting, and reduced vendor complexity, yielding a 20–30% boost in perimeter security, a ~95% improvement in switch port security, and roughly 40% lower overall security TCO.

California Public Utilities Commission

Francis Souza

Network and Security Manager