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Leading Advertising Agency eliminates email attachment problems, and shares visionary ideas through Accellion Secure File Transfer

December 2010 by Marc Jacob

In the fast-paced world of advertising, the award-winning TBWA\Group companies have earned a reputation for creating and delivering challenging, visionary ideas for some of the world’s largest consumer brands, including Apple, Adidas, Sony PlayStation, and Nissan. Part of Omnicom Group Inc., a global advertising, marketing and corporate
communications company, TBWA has 291 offices spanning the globe in 77 countries.

TBWA had an ever increasing need to distribute files to clients, suppliers and other third parties and a large proportion of these files exceed the size restrictions imposed on their own email system and those of email recipients.

Challenges

While the use of an FTP server sidestepped the size limits, it introduced the additional administrative overheads of setting accounts up, installing client software, supporting clients who had trouble using FTP through their own firewalls and with the FTP software itself. The FTP server was only ever intended for transient files, but in most cases, files were never deleted and at regular intervals files older than a certain date files needed to be manually deleted to free up space, adding another administration task.

Nick Allen, IT Director at TBWA\Group says, "From a security point of view we also had concerns. Our FTP server software used explicit SSL encryption, but we also needed to support unencrypted FTP for those clients whose FTP software didn’t support SSL and we had obvious reservations with this.” He adds, “Coupled with this was the lack of
suitable identity management and password policy features in FTP. Inevitably the sharing of usernames and passwords was commonplace as is typical with an FTP implementation but goes against best practice."

TBWA has a mixed environment of Mac’s and PC’s and their clients and suppliers often have similar setups. For these reasons, there was never one simple set of instructions to follow for anyone having difficulties accessing the FTP server. The IT staff often had to liaise with clients unfamiliar with the intricacies of FTP software, and they also frequently had to make calls to the recipients to check whether files had been downloaded successfully.

Solution

According to Allen, "FTP had one single advantage, but multiple significant disadvantages and we set about finding a solution that would solve all these problems.” He says, "Unless you design a bespoke system, it’s not often you manage to find a solution to your problem that doesn’t require compromises of some sort but when we deployed the
Accellion file transfer solution, it became apparent very quickly that this was one of those times. The Accellion appliance addressed every single one of these issues and had obviously been well thought out. We quickly dismissed the other products under consideration."

As part of the US company, Omnicom, TBWA takes Sarbanes Oxley regulatory compliance responsibilities very seriously. The Accellion appliance integrated with the corporate directory for identity management and usage tracking of internal users; therefore immediately solving the agency’s biggest issue. It also manages the identities of their external users very elegantly despite the fact they don’t exist in TBWA’s corporate directory. Being a browser based solution using standard web ports it virtually eliminates any user training issues and firewall issues.

Using the java applet, the progress of a file upload or download is very easily seen. An entire folder can be uploaded at once. Files have an automatic expiry date set so that disk space is never an issue. Virus scanning with scheduled updates ensures no known viruses can infect files on the device. Senders are notified when recipients have uploaded or downloaded a file successfully. Reporting facilities provide a comprehensive audit trail to ensure compliance with corporate, regulatory agency and government requirements. Software updates are simple to apply and don’t need a complete reboot of the system.

Accellion works across multiple browsers and across multiple operating systems with the same experience on all. Allen mentions, "We installed it 10 months ago and ran a user trial which was very successful. Our users frequently send files larger than 2 GB and we have no issues.

Now we have almost 100 internal users. While our FTP server regularly grew to 100 GB before we pruned it back, the built-in file expiry options in the Accellion appliance have ensured that we rarely use more than 36 GB at any one time. In that time, we have rebooted the device perhaps twice and updated the software a few times, but it’s been
largely administration-free."

Allen sums up his experience, "In short, this is a killer app and one which I happily endorse."

BENEFITS
 Large email attachments sent without compromising
the email network.
 ?Real-time collaboration speeds information sharing
internally and to clients.

 ?Reduced IT administration support saves time
and costs

 Automated file management reduces
storage requirements

 ?Ease of use enables adoption

Specifications

TBWA\BWA\
Deployed since June 2007

# of Appliances 1

Location of Appliances London, UK

# of Internal and External Users 100 Internal
Unlimited External

LDAP/AD directory integration Yes

Web Interface Yes

Email Integration Yes

Accellion is exhibiting at Infosecurity Europe 2011 – the No. 1 industry event in Europe – where information security professionals address the challenges of today whilst preparing for those of tomorrow. Held from 19th – 21st April at Earl’s Court, London, the event provides an unrivalled free education programme, with exhibitors showcasing new and emerging technologies and offering practical and professional expertise. For further information please visit www.infosec.co.uk


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