Case Study: Brigham Young University–Hawaii secures network and supports 50% more users with Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls

Brigham Young University Ramps up Security and Prepares Network for Major Expansion with Palo Alto Networks® Next-Generation Firewalls

Brigham Young University–Hawaii, a small higher-education campus serving roughly 2,750 students and 500 staff, faced a looming challenge: prepare its network for ~2,250 additional students while addressing poor visibility, thousands of outdated firewall rules, numerous open ports, bandwidth-hogging BitTorrent/malware (consuming ~25–30% of their 1 Gbps link), and several compromised servers. The in-house IT team needed a way to regain control, tighten security, and simplify management to support a nearly 50% increase in users.

BYU–Hawaii deployed a Palo Alto Networks PA-5020 HA pair with threat prevention, URL filtering and application-level enforcement and redesigned the network into a zero-trust, zoned architecture. The new next-generation firewalls delivered granular application visibility and control, eliminated old appliances (including Websense), and consolidated functions. Results included restored control of servers and the network, improved security, support for 50% more users, lower costs and device consolidation with ROI in two years, and much faster policy creation (30–40× faster) plus flexible, user-based application policies.

Brigham Young University–Hawaii

Neal Moss

Systems and Network Analyst, IT Infrastructure