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In the
booming real estate market, Shorewood Realtors can't afford to have its
network go bust. That's why the Los Angeles-based realtor has
outsourced all network operations to Praxis Computing, a local Cisco Systems
Inc. solutions provider which provides computer consulting services to
Shorewood.
Over the past
10 years, Praxis has built and managed Shorewood's entire network,
which spans a central office and six branch locations throughout Los Angeles County. Next up, Praxis in April
will pilot test CSAs (Cisco Security Agents)
across selected Shorewood servers and desktops. The intrusion detection
software, which Cisco acquired last year, will work side by side with
anti-virus software and Cisco firewalls to defend Shorewood's network
from probing eyes and rogue software.
The CSA pilot
test comes at a critical time for Shorewood. More than 350 agents
across seven offices depend on the firm's network to manage listings,
schedule meetings and communicate with residential buyers and sellers.
Moreover, Shorewood's Web site serves nearly 1,000 visitors a day.
Thanks in
large part to these systems, Shorewood's sales
volume reached $1.9 billion last year, up a healthy 9 percent from
2002.
"Buying
and selling a home is still a very personal process," said Mike
Collins, general manager of Shorewood. "Our systems enhance our
personal touch and make us look even more professional."
Now, consider
the potential impact of Shorewood's network going dark. "Our
agents are dependent upon the network seven days a week," said
Lynn Edwards, chief financial officer at Shorewood. "Any downtime
means a potential lost deal. But beyond downtime, the additional costs
and liabilities of network intrusions are serious concerns for us."
Even before
the CSA rollout, Shorewood took a vigilant security stand with virus
protection and security patches. "However, the cost of constantly
distributing security patches to all of our desktops and servers has
become unmanageable," Edwards said. "It's a disruptive
process. The [CSA] will free us from the burden of constant updates,
saving us real time and money."
Cisco licenses CSA as a console station that runs
on a server; CSA software agents are deployed on neighboring servers
and desktops. A CSA starter kit includes the console, one server and 10
desktops for $3,000. Additional server agents cost $1,775, and a
25-desktop pack lists for $1,625.
Instead of scrambling to apply emergency patches
from software vendors, Shorewood should be able to update its systems
on a more predictable timeline with CSA.
"Shorewood will be protected from new,
unknown attacks without making any ongoing changes to individual
machines," said Jennifer Roback, vice president of sales at
Praxis, in Los Angeles.
"Because of this, we expect Shorewood to see a very quick return
on investment from the CSA deployment, as well as a greatly increased
level of network security."
Assuming the pilot test goes well, Shorewood
expects to roll out CSA across its seven offices over a 30-day period
this spring. "The bulk of the work is in the initial pilot, where
we'll customize CSA for Shorewood's environment," said Roback.
CSA has default settings for desktops, Web
servers, e-mail servers and more. During the pilot test, the CSAs won't interrupt or block Shorewood user
activities at any time. Instead, the agents log all network activities
they recommend denying. After a few days of logging, Praxis will use
the information to develop rules for permitted and denied network
activities. Once the customized CSA rules are outlined, Shorewood can
deploy the software agents rapidly over the network using a single
executable.
Equally important, ongoing CSA updates from the
server to the client agents are automated. "Any future updates to
the rules are made at the console application," said Roback.
"They are propagated automatically to the client agents, which periodically poll the server for
changes."
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Shorewood's vital stats
· Customer Shorewood Realtors
· Organization snapshot One of Los
Angeles' leading residential real estate firms; the company's 357
agents generate $1.88 billion in annual sales
· Business need An enhanced
security solution that protects Shorewood's seven-office network
from rogue software and potential attacker
· Technology partner Praxis
Computing, a Los Angeles-based solution provider and longtime Cisco
reseller
· Recommended solution CSAs to be deployed on Shorewood servers and
desktops
· Project timeline Pilot test this
month with complete deployment shortly thereafter
· Project cost Undisclosed,
although a CSA starter kit includes the console, one server and 10
desktops for $3,000
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This isn't the first time Shorewood has turned to
Praxis for integration services. Their relationship began more than 10
years ago, when Shorewood sought a solutions provider to develop a
commission database for its sales agents.
"Based upon our success with that project, I
recommended that the rest of Shorewood's management team engage Praxis
to provide strategic direction for the firm's technology
infrastructure," said Edwards.
The move paid off. Praxis has since designed a WAN
that blankets Shorewood's central office and six field offices
throughout Los Angeles' South Bay. Each field office has a
Cisco 2950 Series switch and a 1700 Series router. Frame relay connects
branch routers to the central office, which houses a Cisco 2600 router
and a Cisco Catalyst 4503 switch.
The corporate office maintains several servers
that manage Web, database, e-mail and file services for all the
offices. A Cisco PIX 520 firewall and Cisco 4210 IDS (intrusion
detection system) protects the entire network from probing eyes and
would-be attackers. Naturally, the IDS will work side by side with the CSAs.
For mobile sales agents, each Shorewood office has
kiosk stations with secure access to Shorewood's network services as
well as the Internet. Group policies lock down the Windows XP-based
kiosks, permitting only Shorewood-approved applications to run.
Agents can also access Shorewood's network from
afar. Using an assigned password and user name, agents working remotely
can access a secure intranet that includes marketing materials, real
estate statistics and Shorewood's full property listings database.
Remote intranet connections are secured using 128-bit Secure Sockets
Layer.
Moreover, Shorewood's corporate officers can
remotely access additional areas of the corporate network using Cisco's
VPN client software and Cisco 831 routers, which connect to the PIX
firewall.
Joseph C. Panettieri (joe_pan5@yahoo.com)
is editorial director at New York Institute of Technology (www.nyit.edu). He has covered Silicon Valley since 1992.
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