Inteview with Allan Hurst written by Jay McCall

Allan Hurst is glad his company made the decision years ago to protect its network with a SonicWALL appliance. Hurst, one of four partners at professional services company Keep IT Simple (KIS), uses SonicWALL's appliances to protect his company's network from malware and unauthorized users. Using the networking equipment helps the VAR recommend and deploy it to clients.

Recently, SonicWALL referred the Coffee Society, a three-store coffee retail store, to KIS. The coffee store, which competes with other coffee specialty stores like Starbucks and Seattle's Best, tries to differentiate itself by managing the customer experience. One way it can do this is by providing wireless access to its customers for free. Without a secure network, however, the Coffee Society was lucky that free wireless Internet access was all its customers were getting. The retailer originally contacted SonicWALL seeking help for its wireless network, which had spotty coverage and was difficult to manage. After KIS checked out the retailer's network, however, other network problems surfaced. "When we first got in touch with the client and checked out its network, we discovered that the wireless access it provided its customers wasn't properly segmented from its POS [point of sale] application," recalls Mike Florence, senior account manager at KIS.

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