For this UK college, one Barracuda solution leads to another

Cybersecurity vendor consolidation is a rapidly growing enterprise trend. That’s partly driven by the growing sophistication of modern cyberthreats, which exploit multiple vectors and vulnerabilities. Having a comprehensive cybersecurity infrastructure built from tightly integrated, information-sharing components makes it easier to combat these advanced threats.

Globally, the education sector is disproportionately targeted by cyberattacks. Gloucestershire College was feeling it. Head of IT Kevin Agnew and his team were dealing with thousands of phishing emails a day, attempting ransomware, data theft, and fraud.

Beginning with one investment in Barracuda, Gloucestershire College soon was building a comprehensive security infrastructure and SD-WAN network using Barracuda platforms and products.

The first step

Kevin noticed right away when he arrived in his role that there was no third-party data backup on the college’s Microsoft 365 deployment — including many thousands of student accounts and hundreds of staff accounts. In choosing a vendor, flexibility was a key factor.

“Our student numbers fluctuate beyond my control. If the college decides to put a course on and enroll 500 students tomorrow, that could happen, and all of a sudden we have 500 more accounts to backup and secure. Also, when a student’s course finishes, it doesn’t mean their account can be deleted, as they may be waiting for their exam results or for coursework to be returned. That makes it difficult to specify a retention period.”

— Kevin Agnew, Head of IT, Gloucestershire College

Barracuda’s unlimited storage and retention approach got Kevin’s attention, and they purchased Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup.

“I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. Backup was quick, and the Barracuda guys answered all of our questions. It just worked from day one.”

— Kevin Agnew, Head of IT, Gloucestershire College

Building complete security

What followed was a pretty common progression for Barracuda customers. One powerful, easy-to-use product with awesome support leads to another, and another.

Kevin’s firewalls reached end-of-life, so who did he turn to for replacements? Barracuda — and he called the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall “head and shoulders above the rest price-wise, for the functionality we were getting.”

With SD-WAN infrastructure in place, the college needed to address email security. And — you probably see where this is going already — they went with Barracuda Email Protection, the platform that combines multiple capabilities to extend complete protection across the college’s Microsoft 365 deployment.

Looking ahead

Kevin and Gloucestershire College continue to be forward-looking in addressing their potential exposure to cyberattacks. They’re looking into application security — and evaluating Barracuda Application Protection. And they’re planning to renew all their current Barracuda contracts.

Get the whole story, including the many ways Kevin and his team benefit from their Barracuda infrastructure — including Barracuda Firewall Insights and Barracuda Firewall Control Center.