El Al is the national airline of the state of Israel. Its broad base of operation is located next to Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport facilities. The El Al Airlines has numerous offices throughout the globe; these offices are placed according to the various destinations served by El Al and its several subsidiary companies. Subsequent to a thorough study and in line with its continuous efforts to secure its network infrastructure, El Al selected the portnox™ solution by access layers to be the solution to implement and better manage the airline’s overall network access control (NAC).

The portnox™ NAC system by access layers is a revolutionary management and control system for complex organizational IT networks. This unique system affords a complete control of all (100%) network access points (ports), even if they are spread throughout the physical infrastructure of the organizational network.

The portnox™ system identifies in real-time any attempt to access the organizational network and distinguishes between a legitimate organizational device attempting access and one which is illegitimate or, an unauthorized one. In addition, the portnox™ system provides the network security officer a new and superior way to better manage and secure the network via the correlation of various access points attributes such as identification of OS used by the accessing devices, the physical location of that port & the organizational user.

	With this in mind it is obvious that the selection of an appropriate access management and control system for the airline is critical in nature, mainly because of the mandatory availability and accessibility of the network to El Al’s customers and staff.

The Objective and the Challenge

1. To provide a management and control of all (100%) access points to El Al’s organizational networks which are spread over numerous sites and in different geographical areas. Some of which are in great distances from each other.
   
2. To provide a flexible management tool and post implementation technical support as required by the IT staff.
3. To deploy the portnox solution, without any physical changes to the network infrastructure, or the need for installing software agent components at the end points.
4. To provide the post implementation option of a modular expansion according to the future needs of the organization and its network.

What do they say at EL-AL about portnox™

Mr. Omer Yuval, El Al’s network administrator points out that:

"This new system offers us the availability of complete control and tracking of all (100%), access points (ports) to the network. It provides us a unified management of all the switches and the access points (ports) anywhere in the organizational network egardless of the device’s type. A key point is that portnox™ enables us to make certain that only the devices authorized by the organization are allowed access to the organizational network.. As the first stage of the implementation we have assimilate portnox™ into the system in Israeli branches and we’re set to begin to incorporate portnox™ at the rest of the El Al sites globally."

"The character and the attributes of portnox™ enabled El Al a full and complete realization within a very short period of time, and there was no infrastructural modification or changes needed, nor was there a need or requirement for installation of agent devices or software at the end stations. Besides the actual installation and the operational absorption of the product into the managerial level of the organization there were no special preparations needed. As to the ongoing maintenance of the product, there is no administrative difficulty or obstacle here either. That is due to the multitude of interfaces and the capability of isolating points of access which no doubt brings an added value to the various infrastructure and security departments with their differing needs.”

Mr. Itzik Cohen, Chief of the IT and communications infrastructures at El Al say:

"We selected portnox™ once we understood that beyond the initial requirement of managing the existing access approach, there is an operational factor which is different for the various departments in the organization and it has different impact on their operation. The portnox™ system enables us, on one hand to pinpoint the access to the network at the single access point (port) and on the other hand it gives us the reach of a granular oversight which provides a management interface for each department.”