Wick Hill Is Appointed Distributor For Celestix’ New Security Appliances, Running Microsoft’s® New TMG™ Security Software And UAG™ Secure Access Software

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.