The City College of NY (CCNY) is focused on excellence across the board – striving to provide the highest level of teaching, research, and services for undergraduate and graduate students. That same drive for quality is applied to the College’s IT infrastructure and associated technology products.

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CHALLENGE: Costly Appliance-based Solution Doesn’t Make the Grade

The City College of NY (CCNY) is focused on excellence across the board – striving to provide the highest level of teaching, research, and services for undergraduate and graduate students. That same drive for quality is applied to the College’s IT infrastructure and associated technology products, so when its existing message security solution was delivering sub-par performance, CCNY took immediate action.

“We were using an appliance-based product, which dramatically slowed inbound email and required ongoing IT maintenance to manage numerous hardware and software upgrades,” said Praveen Panchal, Vice President of IT for The City College of New York. “The effectiveness was nowhere near our standards and meanwhile, was costing us significant IT dollars and resources.”

As one of 24 educational institutions within the CUNY (The City University of New York) network, the College decided to look within to find out what products others were using to successfully keep email threats at bay. The inquiry pointed to one solution – Proofpoint Enterprise Protection – with more than half of CUNY’s schools relying on Proofpoint for comprehensive email security.

“I used Proofpoint in my previous role at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was incredibly impressed with the solution, and they are still using it today,” said Panchal. “Proofpoint has a great reputation, with strong references from other schools, and provides better performance than competitive offerings, at a lower cost.”

In addition, CCNY required a virtual solution that could easily be deployed within its existing IT environment, which at the time, was 90 percent virtualized. And most importantly, the College wanted proven, proactive malware protection – to accurately detect and filter inbound attacks in order to stop phishing attempts, spam, and viruses from reaching end users. Proofpoint was the clear way to go.