Dedini Achieves Network Optimization, Security and Transparency of Processes with Enterasys Secure Networks

Brazil-based pioneer in biodiesel manufacturing achieves total control and visibility of its network while easily strengthening overall security and functionality
Enterasys Networks Inc., the Secure Networks Company™, announced today that Dedini S/A Industrias de Base, a global manufacturer based in Brazil, has selected Enterasys products to achieve its goal of total network control and visibility. The Enterasys solution allowed this Latin American leader in the production of biodiesel, sugar, industrial machinery and consumer food and beverage goods to reduce its 3D file transfer time and quickly identify and respond to security events and errors on its network, allowing for greater safety and transparency in the company’s processes, as proven by an external audit.

At the end of 2006, Dedini’s IT staff realized the need for a new infrastructure to support strong company growth due to the rising global demand for biofuel production. Dedini was challenged with an overloaded infrastructure backbone, as well as difficulties in managing all the network’s components. Security incidents were becoming more frequent. The company’s LAN (Local Area Network) architecture was not segmented and could not scale to meet the growing number of applications and varying network services.

“We chose Enterasys because they not only offered a better cost vs. benefit ratio, but also because they had the best integrated solution, meeting all the requirements our network project demanded,” said Robson Santiago, Dedini’s IT Infrastructure Manager. “Enterasys products offered security, visibility and sustained growth.” Interoperability with Siemens manufacturing software, Dedini’s integration partner, was also a crucial factor for the selection.

By leveraging a network upgrade, Dedini’s IT staff was able to improve the performance of engineering applications, which require large amounts of bandwidth and security. The company also needed to standardize all network assets in order to facilitate an incident management and control policy. Furthermore there was a large demand for safety, because it was essential for Dedini to have greater control of the manufacturing environment as a whole, avoiding all kinds of problems, including those in the company’s commercial goods area. “All these difficulties are now quickly removed due to the management capacity of the new Enterasys network,” Santiago said.

Dedini’s Brazil production facilities consist of nine separate sites located across Brazil, including manufacturing plants and operational and commercial units. The network infrastructure is composed of 1700 access points, 168 switches, 28 servers and 7 routers. Dedini was able to retain the existing multimode optical fiber infrastructure with the conversion of Fast Ethernet uplinks to Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. The project’s first stage was carried out at the company’s headquarters, located in Piracicaba, and consisted of implementation of the Secure Network architecture from Enterasys, in order to establish and enforce unified wired and wireless policies for network access.

Dedini’s Enterasys solution consists of Enterasys® Network Access Control (NAC) as well as the Enterasys SecureStack™ for cabled access, RoamAbout® for wireless access, Matrix® N-Series for the core, and the NetSight® management platform for servers and centralized management. With this new architecture in place, each Dedini network user and guest first has his/her ID is validated, and then an automated scan determines if the station complies with minimum safety requirements (antivirus version, Windows service pack, etc.). Once a network connection has been made, traffic is monitored by the Dragon Intrusion Detection/Prevention solution (IDS/IPS), which detects attacks, anomalies, suspicious activities and improper resource utilization and reacts automatically to any security incident by locating and blocking at the point of origin the user who originated the threat. This solution ensured that Dedini’s new network not only leverages high performance availability and speed, but also retains complete control and visibility of the information traffic on its network.

Initially, the Enterasys deployment was limited to the Foundry and Mechanics group. However, during the guidelines definition stage, Dedini decided to expand the project to include additional locations in Piracicaba. The network infrastructure is also supporting Voice over IP functionality for 70 percent of users in Piracicaba.

“By the end of 2007 there were approximately 2000 access points networked to the Enterasys solution, and we plan to have this same structure consolidated at the São Paulo, Sertãozinho, Maceió and Jaboatão units in 2008,” Santiago said. "With Enterasys, we are capable of providing any kind of IT service to the company, safely and easily, and feel confident in any audit situations.”