| "In the first few days, everyone watched and held their breath. Over time, however, the client grew confident and was very, very satisfied." |  |
Securing Competition
When one of the world's most prestigious regional athletic competitions opened in Qatar last June, it drew 15,000 athletes from 45 countries, and 6,000 members of the global press. They also created the need to secure an enterprise IT infrastructure spanning multiple sites, 223 servers, six databases and 1,330 devices. Security threats ranged from mischievous hacking incidents to potential breaches of the game score servers and "backdoor entry" through remote laptops. To Ganesan Lakshmanan, there was only one company truly up to the task: his company, CA, and its CA Security Command Center solution.
Based in Dubai, Lakshmanan, Senior Consultant in Technical Sales, knew he faced stiff competition - including that from Ssangyong, the games' major application vendor. Nevertheless, he believed CA had assets that formed a competitive edge, including technologies proven to work across platforms, the ability to deliver an integrated solution, an exceptional customer partner (Emircom), a strong deployment methodology, and a solution architecture based on experience with similar high-impact events.
Lakshmanan answered the RFP, made a string of presentations, gauged requirements, gave responses, and made the final proposal that won the contract. He then worked closely with Senior CA Architect Charles Cockshoot to oversee implementation and security management operations throughout the event. The CA solution managed to catch numerous intrusions and serious events, maintaining continuous availability 24/7. Lakshmanan reports that "in the first few days, everyone watched and held their breath. Over time, however, the client grew confident and was very, very satisfied."
According to Maria Medvedeva, CA Security Business Unit Director, EMEA Eastern, Lakshmanan's strength — besides expertise — is his versatility. "Ganesan's vital to the technical team, sharing his thoughts and insights," she says. "At the same time, he's invaluable on the business side."
Content posted on: 16 July 2007
