Shearline Precise Engineering – Smoothwall Filter Case Study

What’s the background?

Shearline Precision Engineering is one of the UK’s most advanced engineering companies. The company operates globally in sectors including oil and gas, automotive, military defense and aerospace.

Shearline occupies 95,000 sq ft over two sites located in Ely, Cambridgeshire. The company offers a ‘Total Manufacturing Solution’ from design, prototyping and first batch manufacture through to full-scale manufacture.

IT Manager, Matthew Swain, manages the IT infrastructure over the two sites and needs to meet the internet requirements of both on and off-site users.

What was the challenge?

Shearline was protecting their network with a completely outdated system which hadn’t been updated since 2011. This left the company open to security threats from outside and within the business.

Matthew needed a more reliable web filter as his users were circumventing the previous solution: “we had over 90 users running through the old solution, and only 20 were actually getting filtered access”.

With their recently increased bandwidth via a new BT net line, Matthew needed to monitor and control access. Previously, the use of video streaming and filesharing sites was “annihilating bandwidth”, which could not continue.

“We had over 90 users running through the old solution, and only 20 were actually getting filtered access.”

How Smoothwall helped

Following a simple evaluation process, Matthew chose a Smoothwall Filter “After the demonstration, I was hooked on it and it was the perfect fit for the business”.

He was immediately able to see the reality of what was happening on their network: “The number of entertainment sites being blocked was alarming — it was amazing to see what people were trying to access”.

To ensure that their remote users received the same protection, Shearline deployed Smoothwall Connect — with great results: “The feedback we’ve had from the salespeople is absolutely superb. It’s faster, more secure and more reliable, it just works wherever you are!”.

The Layer 7 controls have brought the use of filesharing and video streaming websites, such as YouTube, under control: “The benefits of the Layer 7 capability are second to none”.

With further network changes planned, they couldn’t be happier with how Smoothwall has fit into the business: “In terms of it fitting into our existing infrastructure, it’s been absolutely seamless with no problems at all”.

Matt is now confident he has complete control over his network: “The overall manageability and visibility of the system is absolutely invaluable to me”.