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With a student population close to 10,000, PSB Academy -- a private education institution in Singapore -- runs an IT infrastructure that supports both learning and business operations. Besides using IT in its own offices, classrooms and labs, PSB Academy leverages IT to offer distance-learning courses with its academic partners in the UK and Australia and program collaborations in China and Vietnam.

Its local IT system consists of 250 desktop and laptop computers, multiple wired and wireless networks, business and educational applications, telepresence equipment and digital tools for the labs. These technologies generate as much as 30G byte of data per month and it is critical that networks be free of spam and malware.

By deploying the Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud, Symantec MessageLabs Email Security.cloud and Symantec Backup Exec to protect its computers, communications and data across its IT network, PSB Academy has recorded a 70% reduction in time spent on administration and a massive reduction in the volume of spam.

After two weeks of initial testing, PSB Academy rolled out the cloud security and backup solutions in the corporate network in less than two days.

"We were given a very limited timeframe to complete the transition to a cloud-based infrastructure," said Martyn Yap, IT manager at PSB Academy. "Thanks to the IT expertise provided by Symantec and their partner Jardine OneSolution, the deployment was quick and fuss free. Our management and their internal IT team are very pleased with the progress made and this sentiment is echoed by our helpdesk specialists, who have also praised the efficiency of Symantec's solutions."

Disruptions to business operations and student learning were minimized due to the ease with which PSB Academy's IT operations team could manage virtualization, standardized software and cloud-based services while maintaining control and protection of their critical data.

The Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud and Symantec MessageLabs Email Security.cloud safeguard endpoints against spam and malware. Symantec Backup Exec -- with agents for VMware, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory and Windows Servers -- provides intelligent backup and recovery capabilities.

"We believe the success and satisfaction stem from the localized and simplified control we now enjoy over our IT environment," Yap added. "We are able to have a very good overview of our network, translating into better decision-making moving forward. This will further assist PSB Academy to use technology as an enabler of key business processes."

"One of the biggest challenges faced by businesses today is to safeguard mission-critical data from Internet security threats and data loss without the complexities of managing those solutions," said Bjorn Engelhardt, vice president of Strategic Sales for Asia Pacific and Japan at Symantec.  "This issue is exacerbated as organizations typically operate under stringent IT demands with limited resources. Symantec's cloud-based security solutions enabled PSB Academy to not only improve their IT operational efficiency but also significantly reduce their security risk."