Telco expert chooses BiGuard 30 to double productivity
Australian company speeds up technical service delivery through PPTP remote access and reduces customer communication costs with VPN

TAMCO is an Australian company that specializes in providing voice and data communication systems and services to customers ranging from small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) to corporate enterprises and government agencies. For more than 20 years, TAMCO has delivered ‘best of breed’ systems to meet its customers’ voice and data management requirements. Through its network of field engineers, TAMCO delivers products and services throughout Australia.

During 2008, TAMCO recognized it needed to leverage the experience and expertise of its technical staff more effectively through the application of secure remote access technologies, both for itself and for its customers. On any one day, as many as four of TAMCO’s 10 employees can be on the road, either on sales calls or delivering technical service for customers. Previous remote access technologies had provided limited functionality for these employees when they sought to gain access to resources on the company’s internal network from a remote location. TAMCO was also looking for a more effective and secure solution for delivering customer support through remote access technologies.

After a comprehensive evaluation of products from vendors including international brands followed by three months of field testing, TAMCO chose the Billion BiGuard 30 Dual-WAN IPSec VPN Security Gateway to use both in-house and to offer to customers as a secure network solution.

TAMCO identified the Billion BiGuard 30 iBusiness Security Gateway as the product that best met its business requirements. The BiGuard 30 is a rack-mountable security device that supports leading-edge technologies including Virtual Private Network (VPN), Load Balancing and integrated firewall. This combination of efficiency and security makes the BiGuard 30 the ideal security device for allowing TAMCO staff to create VPNs to connect into the company’s office when they are on the road or working from home. The BiGuard 30 also enables TAMCO technical staff to create Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) links to BiGuard devices on customer networks to deliver secure remote access support services. TAMCO has also deployed BiGuard 2 devices to support its staff members who work from remote offices. Sales staff who are on the road use the BiGuard C01 IPSec VPN client software to access the head office network.

The BiGuard 30 can support as many as 30 IPSec Virtual Private Network connections. TAMCO‘s Tom Chang said the BiGuard 30 was ideally suited to the requirements and budgets of small to medium sized businesses. “While we have all the BiGuard models working here, the BiGuard 30 is our main unit because it has 30 VPN tunnels,” he said. “We needed that sort of capacity because we have so many people wanting remote access. This was a key reason for choosing the BiGuard 30. An unexpected benefit for TAMCO is that using the BiGuard technology ourselves has assisted us to identify more capabilities than we initially recognized.”

BiGuard doubles productivity for TAMCO technical staff TAMCO uses the BiGuard 30 to secure the integrity of VPN and PPTP connections delivered by an ADSL2+ broadband service from Optus. TAMCO employees use VPN services to access the corporate network when they are on the road while TAMCO‘s technical staff use PPTP links to provide remote troubleshooting services for the company’s customers. Tom Chang said the BiGuard Security Gateway enabled TAMCO to deliver better value service for its customers. “We use the BiGuard 30 to provide us with remote access to a customer’s site,” he said. “When we set up a BiGuard device for a customer, we configure it with PPTP, so we can quickly create a PPTP link from our PC into their network via the BiGuard. The benefit is that access can occur in the background over a fully secure link, so we don’t need to trouble the customer. In a troubleshooting sense, if there’s a problem, instead of an hour talking with someone on the phone to diagnose the symptoms, the BiGuard provides secure remote access as if we were on site. “This gives us much greater productivity. It can reduce the time required for a particular job by 50 per cent or more. Effectively it has doubled our productivity which means TAMCO is solving problems faster for our customers and providing them with even more value for money.”

" As a communications company, we sought a cost-effective solution to use internally and to offer our customers. The BiGuard is well priced and has all the features we needed, so it offers great value for money for both TAMCO and our customers. It is ideally suited to our market segment." TAMCO Product Specialist Tom Chang

BiGuard improves security and cuts costs for TAMCO
Tom Chang said the BiGuard technology had strengthened TAMCO’s security and reduced its communication costs. “The BiGuard devices make it quick and easy to set up remote offices,” he said. “Using the VPN capabilities of the BiGuard technology, staff can work from home or be on call without being on the premises. It can also support staff members on maternity leave or employees who work part time.

“Another benefit of the BiGuard technology is when you travel overseas. It can be very expensive to make calls from a hotel to the office in Australia. Using the Internet access provided by a hotel, we can use the C01 BiGuard IPSec VPN Client Software to create a VPN to log into the office network through the BiGuard device. This allows us to use facilities as if we were in the office, such as checking email, updating documents and making VoIP calls using the office phone system. The underpinning benefit is that the BiGuard technology allows this to occur with total security.”

Tom Chang said the BiGuard technology had also strengthened TAMCO’s commercial appeal. “A key reason for choosing the BiGuard equipment is that it provides great value for money for our customers,” he said. “We use it throughout our operations so that we can tell our customers, from first-hand experience, how it can help them.”

BiGuard provides TAMCO with “future-proof” solution
The design of the Billion BiGuard Business Security Appliance family satisfies TAMCO’s current and future requirements. The unit’s dual-WAN ports provide TAMCO with the ability to combine two broadband lines, providing support for an additional redundant pathway to its current ADSL2+ service. The load balancing feature of the BiGuard 30 also equips TAMCO to avoid network congestion as traffic volumes grow by distributing incoming traffic across two connections.

Tom Chang said the technical excellence of Billion’s BiGuard devices met TAMCO’s needs for more bandwidth, network scalability and resilience. “Billion’s BiGuard family provides plenty of scope for our expected requirements,” he said. “For both TAMCO and for our customers, that makes the BiGuard technology a future-proof solution.”

Billion support and service exceeds expectations
Tom Chang also praised support services provided by Billion’s authorized master distributor in Australia, PC Range. “Regardless of whether our inquiry is about product testing or field implementation, PC Range and Billion always respond to our queries promptly when we raise issues,” he said. “Their dedicated support and service has exceeded expectations.

“PC Range provides Level Two support and, if necessary, has referred us to Billion’s R&D Department. By allowing us to contact Billion directly, it means that when we have a problem, we get immediate access to the support we need. Whether a problem arises from hardware or software, we can quickly get the right level of support, which allows us to get to the bottom of the problem and fix it for our customers.”