The Republic and Canton of Jura is the youngest of the Swiss cantons. Created in 1979, the Canton of Jura has about 70,000 inhabitants. That capital is Delémont.
Like the other cantons, Jura is a state that has its own institutions (government, parliament, and judicial branch). The cantonal administration employees 800 people. It consists of five departments (ministries) and a Chancery comprising a total of some fifty administrative units ranging from health to the environment, not to mention finance, policy, education, civil engineering, or culture and sports, representing more than 140 different fields of activity. To this formidable system must also be added the various government-related agencies, such as schools, for example, which use our services.
The Information Technology Department plays a very important role within the cantonal administration, since it manages all of the information system resources offered to the various departments. This represents more than 400 applications, about a hundred projects, and the secure networking of the whole within a context in which certain services are being opened up to the inhabitants via the Internet (e-government, cyberadministration, etc.).
The infrastructure in existence before Arkoon’s solutions were chosen was functional, but it had some weaknesses, particularly in terms of upgrades and maintenance. Indeed, the entire infrastructure was based on open-source firewalls (iptables) that, although effective, did not offer all the flexibility and capabilities of Arkoon products.
With the appointment of Bruno Kerouanton in the position of information security officer, the year 2007 marked the initialization of the Cofrepi project (Consolidation of Internet Front-ends and Gateways) aimed at improving the security and availability of the various infrastructures cut off from the outside.
Of the various needs ascertained during this security project, replacement of the firewalls proved necessary so that new threats and needs could be taken into consideration: application-level filtering, high availability and integration with backup sites, centralized management, a device in the form of an appliance, etc.
Arkoon’s response
The Arkoon company submitted a proposal meeting all of the needs expressed above.
The choice was made in favor of the UTM FAST360 A210 Appliance, with management in high-availability mode and integrated IDS/IPS modules.
Why choose Arkoon?
The Arkoon solution implemented as part of the Cofrepi project made it possible to achieve a better level of security, provide redundancy in the event of a failure or the isolation of a site, and considerably simplify management of the security rules for the administration teams.
Several reasons explain why Arkoon was chosen. The notoriety of the company and its strong presence in French public agencies, some of which handle highly sensitive data, were two significant points in the evaluation of the proposal. The other determining factors were the Arkoon’s ability to offer products completely meeting the needs of the Republic and Canton of Jura and the attractive price-tag of those products.
The partner
The BEDAG company focuses solely on the supply of services to Swiss public agencies. As a BS7799- and ISO 27001-certified company, it is perfectly aware of the needs of the Republic and Canton of Jura and is capable of meeting them in an adequate manner.
