Castings P.L.C. is an iron casting and machining group, based in the UK, that supplies both the domestic and export markets. The company has been a customer of Spitfire Network Services for 12-years, initially for internet services.
In 2017, Castings P.L.C tasked Spitfire with bringing its security and connectivity in-house for its three sites. The company required a consolidated single solution that was easy to manage. Spitfire recommended and installed an MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) consisting of resilient Ethernet connectivity at each site and centralised hosted high availability firewalls.
In 2022, Castings P.L.C faced a new challenge regarding firewalls. Across the group, there are over a thousand devices in use. The operation is 24/7, so always-on connectivity was pivotal as access to data is needed 24/7.
Initially, Castings P.L.C purchased and managed their own high availability firewalls to be hosted within Spitfire’s core on the edge of their MPLS. However, with limited internal knowledge and time to manage them, issues began to arise, and employees were experiencing a growing number of issues and consequently reporting tickets to the IT team.
Spitfire developed a bespoke suite of solutions for Castings P.L.C with the sole objective of reducing connectivity downtime. Spitfire’s firewall-as-a-service is now providing Castings P.L.C with a fully managed service to secure its network perimeter.
The solution uses Fortinet’s Fortigate Firewall Security and Unified Threat Management platform, with Spitfire’s firewall-as-a-service threat protection capabilities underpinned by Spitfire’s business grade network and support services.
Billy Drew, group IT Manager, Castings PLC, explained, “Maintaining connectivity and ensuring we are always-on 24/7 is so critical for our operations, and that’s exactly what Spitfire’s solutions enable us to do. With Spitfire’s firewall-as-a-service, it’s the ease of access and how simple it has been to set up.
“I haven’t got to manage my data anymore – it’s managed for me. It means I can focus on other critical IT projects across the group. They have a no-nonsense approach to solving problems for us, which is what we like. Moving over to Spitfire’s firewall-as-a-service has been a lifesaver for us.”