Concern Worldwide boosts its IT security


19 Oct 2011

Integrity Solutions has installed a unified network and security platform at Concern Worldwide’s headquarters in Dublin, improving communications for its staff across the world.

“Our primary concern is to provide food, clean water, healthcare and education to the people who most need it,” said Barry Roche, enterprise services manager at Concern Worldwide. 

“To help us do this, we’ve built an international technology infrastructure that allows us to co-operate very effectively as a global team.  With this new platform, Integrity has taken performance, speed and security to the next level,” he said.

“We can now get our people securely connected to all of our systems and applications almost instantly, even in the most remote regions. This is invaluable in times of crisis,” said Roche.

Concern’s global VPN’s security and performance were improved following a successful pilot.

Integrity Solutions implemented secure services gateways at Concern’s Dublin HQ, which optimised its network performance. According to Integrity Solutions, 350Mbps of voice and data traffic are now securely available at all times.

Secure gateways were also rolled out to all of Concern’s global office and emergency relief centres using remote connectivity from the Dublin headquarters.

This means that approved staff can securely access Concern’s online systems and communications wherever they are, which will be particularly useful when they need to set up relief centres quickly in times of emergency. Concern staff can use smartphones to securely access this information and use applications in remote areas.

The network has also let the charity roll out new technologies to places in need. It recently gave handheld devices to staff working with farmers in Malawi, Nairobi and Sudan to gather information, such as livestock number, grain prices and pests issues.

This data is then sent back to Concern’s head office in real time so the charity can make decisions to quickly assist farmers to improve their self-sufficiency.

The security platform offers protection from worms, spyware, Trojans, malware and anyone seeking unauthorised access to the network. This is all managed by Concern’s IT team from its Dublin base.

Concern can also manage bandwidth use across the world to optimise its global service.

It’s the latest step the charity has taken in boosting its IT. Concern Worldwide recently signed a cloud computing deal with EMC.