Unilever Secures With BT

LONDON -- Unilever has awarded BT a contract for the provision of a managed firewall service. The 10.5m pounds ($19.7 million) global agreement will run over a six and a half year period and follows the recent extension to its original seven-year service contract with Unilever.

The new deal will involve BT taking over full management responsibilities for Unilever's existing estate of 256 firewalls spread across 68 countries. BT will transform Unilever's regionally managed firewall model into a single, consolidated global management structure in line with the rest of its networked IT services. BT's dedicated global managed firewall service team will remotely manage the consolidated system, enhancing security against virus and other network- based attacks by applying a standard set of processes and reporting procedures to each of the firewalls.

Geoff Thirlwall, Vice President, IT Services Unilever, said: "As an extension of our existing service contract, we have now opted to transfer the management of our firewalls to BT. Our decision was based on a desire to transform the management of the service in line with the rest of our IT portfolio and benefit from the added global security that BT will deliver through its standardized service."

Ray Stanton, global head of BT's business continuity, security and governance practice, said: "This contract underlines the ongoing strength and success of our relationship with Unilever, extending our value added outsourcing services to cover the vital area of security. BT's skills and expertise in the global IT security market are shown to maximum effect by consolidating the monitoring and management of such a large number of dispersed firewalls under one team with a single set of operating procedures. BT is committed to supporting Unilever in developing all aspects of its IT infrastructure to protect its assets world wide."

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)