Case Study: STW Group achieves faster HD downloads and stronger security with Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks™ provides STW Group with greater network visibility and control, faster access to large downloads, and more secure internet access.

STW Group, Australasia’s largest marketing content and communications services group with more than 75 operating companies and ~1,400 users across Australia, faced performance and visibility problems as staff increasingly relied on high-definition video and large image downloads. Their legacy firewall couldn’t scale from a 50Mb to a planned 300Mb Internet link, and enabling IPS severely degraded application performance—forcing it off and leaving the network exposed.

STW replaced the legacy device with a Palo Alto Networks PA-5020 next‑generation firewall (implemented by VMtech), gaining user‑and‑application‑based control, directory integration, proxy-style content filtering, and high‑performance threat prevention. The deployment restored fast access to large downloads at 300Mb, delivered granular user/application visibility and logging for business intelligence, safely enabled applications, and allowed IPS to run transparently without impacting network performance.

STW Group

Tom Ceglarek

CIO