New security appliances for companies wanting a Microsoft® security solution

15th April, 2010: Woking, Surrey - Wick Hill has been appointed a UK distributor for Celestix, a manufacturer of security appliances to mid-market organisations and enterprises.

Wick Hill will focus on Celestix' new MSA™ and WSA™ security appliances, which have recently been re-engineered and upgraded to run Microsoft's new Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG) security software and Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 (UAG) secure access software respectively.

Wick Hill is already a long-established, successful distributor of Celestix' products in Germany and will now use its expertise in security distribution to help Celestix grow its UK business.

The MSA and WSA security appliances are aimed at existing Microsoft users in mid-market organisations and smaller enterprises who want to improve security and secure access, with good performance, while maintaining a Microsoft environment.

Wick Hill is looking for new channel partners, particularly those with Microsoft experience, to resell the Celestix solutions.

According to Ian Kilpatrick, chairman Wick Hill Group, Celestix MSA and WSA security appliances represent a great opportunity for Microsoft resellers to sell alongside other Microsoft solutions, broadening their portfolio. Kilpatrick said that Wick Hill would provide resellers with accreditation and support, where required, on dealing with the technical and security issues around the products.

He expected the solutions to sell well. He commented: "We see a big market potential. We have seen very strong growth in Germany and the indications are that there will be a similar level of growth in the UK."

Product information
Celestix' MSA Series integrates with Microsoft's Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG), and Windows Server 2008 operating system, maximising performance and adding both additional processing power and memory.

Microsoft's TMG software supports deployment scenarios for application-layer firewall, proxy and caching. It also has new features including built-in URL filtering, web anti-virus/anti-malware support, HTTPS inspection capabilities, and vulnerability-based intrusion detection/prevention. Microsoft has also added enhanced support for array management, load balancing and ISP redundancy.

The new Celestix' MSA appliances introduce Celestix' next-generation Comet™ appliance engine software. It takes full advantage of the new 64-bit architecture to provide datacenter-ready features such as a web user interface (for headless operation), integrated save/restore of Last Good Version (for disaster recovery), and a rebuilt software update engine to provide a comprehensive view of patching.

Celestix' WSA™ series appliances host Microsoft's new Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 (UAG) software. UAG provides centralised, highly customisable management that provides granular access and policy control across all of an enterprise's users, devices, and network resources. It lets network professionals provide mobile and remote workers with secure access to enterprise applications via a highly configurable SSL VPN.

UAG gives administrators expanded options for managing Microsoft's new DirectAccess always on VPN feature in Windows Server 2008 R2. DirectAccess is expected to be a significant factor in the field of secure access as enterprises migrate their network infrastructures to Windows Server 2008 R2.

About Wick Hill
Established in 1976, value added distributor Wick Hill specialises in secure infrastructure solutions. The company sources and delivers best-of-breed, easy-to-use solutions through its channel partners, with a portfolio that covers security, performance, access, networking, unified communications and hosted solutions.

Wick Hill is part of the Wick Hill Group, based in Woking, Surrey with sister offices in Hamburg. Wick Hill is particularly focused on providing a wide range of value added support for its channel partners. This includes a strong lead generation and conversion programme, technical and consultancy support for reseller partners in every stage of the sales process, and extensive training facilities.

About Celestix
Celestix delivers thousands of security appliances to mid-market organizations and enterprises annually. Founded in 1999, Celestix Networks features offices in Fremont, California; Singapore; Reading, UK and Chennai, India. Celestix has significant presences throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions to supplement its channel business. To date, Celestix has enlisted over 500 channel partners worldwide to help serve its end customers. For more information, visit Celestix on the Web at www.celestix.com.

ENDS

For further press information, please contact Annabelle Brown on 01326 212130, email abpublicrelations@btinternet.com. For reader queries, please contact Wick Hill on 01483 227600, web www.wickhill.com. Product picture on - http://www.celestix.com/index.php?option=com_celestixgallery&Itemid=72&lang=en