Hitachi Consulting Deploys NetScreen

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- NetScreen Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSCN) today announced that Hitachi Consulting, the business and technology consulting arm of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) , has deployed NetScreen integrated firewall and virtual private network (VPN) security solutions to support its multimedia IP network, which includes data, voice and video services.

A major advantage of voice over IP (VoIP) and Internet telephony technologies is that they allow organizations to avoid the tolls charged by ordinary telephone service -- using the Internet backbone slashes the price for these calls. The same holds true for video conferencing over the Internet.

In early 2002, Hitachi leveraged an existing relationship with another hardware vendor to deploy its initial VPN solution for its VoIP network, which is used for all intra-company voice traffic, voicemail and much of the company's long distance calls. However, within six months, Hitachi's IT department concluded that the solution had failed to provide the scalability, performance and management functionality needed to effectively operate its VoIP network.

Working with Westron Communications, a trusted solution provider, Hitachi Consulting selected a NetScreen solution to replace its previous VPN network. By using NetScreen appliances to transport voice traffic over a VPN, Hitachi Consulting has seen many benefits, including secure and efficient telephone calls between offices and across the public Internet.

"Within 24 hours of the NetScreen installation we were getting calls from employees telling us how happy they were with the voice quality. The difference was like night and day," said Michael Shisko, director of IT at Hitachi Consulting. As a result of deploying the NetScreen solution, Hitachi realized a significant improvement in network performance and a significant reduction in network latency.

Hitachi deployed NetScreen-5XT and -204 appliances as well as a NetScreen-500 system, all purpose-built, hardware-based devices that integrate firewall, VPN, traffic management and denial of service protection.

The NetScreen-500 system, a high-performance, security system offering up to 700 Mbps firewall performance and 3DES VPN performance of 250 Mbps, is located at Hitachi's corporate headquarters in Dallas. NetScreen-204 appliances, which offer up to 400 Mbps of firewall performance and up to 200 Mbps of 3DES VPN performance, are located at 14 different Hitachi field offices. NetScreen-5XT appliances offer up to 70 Mbps firewall and 20 Mbps of 3DES VPN performance provide a cost-effective solution and round out the network for Hitachi's smaller site offices. To manage the devices and security policies, Hitachi is using NetScreen's central management platform.

NetScreen Technologies Inc.