WEBROOT CUSTOMER CASE STUDY » SYNAGRO
Webroot Boosts Efficiency
for Sustainable Solutions
Provider Synagro
BACKGROUND
Synagro helps companies and communities create sustainable solutions to the waste by-products
generated from civic and commercial progress, and reflects a commitment to strong local and national
partnerships that embrace development and prioritize the preservation of our natural heritage.
AT A GLANCE
THE CHALLENGE
Since its founding almost three decades ago, Synagro has played a vital role as one of the country’s
preeminent providers of comprehensive waste capture and conversion services. Headquartered in
Baltimore, Synagro employs over 800 people in 34 states and serves more than 600 municipal and
industrial water and wastewater facilities.
Vertical » Energy & Utlities
End Users » 800
Devices » Desktops & Laptops
Director of IT » Michael Wilson
To support its wide range of solutions that include the cleaning, transforming, producing and reusing of
waste materials, Synagro has put innovative logistics systems in place to integrate and coordinate the
activities at its various facilities nationwide. The IT infrastructure that supports those systems must
deliver high performance and reliability, and do so efficiently and cost-effectively.
Like so many organizations in today’s sluggish economy, Synagro needs to work within a
constrained budget to achieve its IT objectives. Hence the firm’s Director of IT, Michael Wilson, is
constantly seeking ways to maximize the value Synagro receives from its IT investment. It wasn’t
long before Wilson and his IT team had determined their endpoint protection solution (Sophos) was
causing significant problems and slowdowns.
“We used to use Sophos,” explains Wilson. “And we found that the product was just not effective
at preventing infections. To make matters worse, it had a large compute footprint on each system.
It just didn’t make sense to stick with an AV product that was ineffective and highly resourceintensive.” So Wilson began investigating three different AV solutions, and what he discovered led
him to choose Webroot SecureAnywhere® Business Endpoint Protection.
Copyright © Webroot Inc. » August 2014
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CASE STUDY SYNAGRO
THE SOLUTION
RESULTS
What influenced Wilson to select Webroot? “It was obvious to me that
Webroot took a fundamentally different approach to endpoint protection
compared with the other, conventional antivirus vendors,” Wilson recalls.
“Of course, the end result is what matters most, and my research indicated
Webroot products are very effective.” And there were other considerations
that convinced Wilson he’d made the best choice for his organization:
Wilson and his team tracked the metrics produced by Webroot, which
provide persuasive evidence of the measurable benefits delivered by
SecureAnywhere™ Business Endpoint Protection:
“SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection is
an easier tool for my limited IT staff to manage. And
Webroot’s tech support is very responsive, we quickly
got answers to any questions we had.”
With such impressive results, it should come as no surprise that Wilson
offers an enthusiastic endorsement of Webroot:
Michael Wilson, Director of IT, Synagro
Webroot’s initial install package is extremely small (around 500 KB)
because no signature database is stored within the client software (that
database is typically the largest part of a conventional client); instead,
Webroot maintains a huge (over 250 TB) signature database in the cloud
The advantages of Webroot’s more efficient, cloud-based approach are
compelling:
• Better protection (due to a vastly more comprehensive database)
• Quicker installation (completed in just a matter of seconds)
• Average scan time per device dropped to 60 seconds
• Saved 3-4 hours per week in managing security-related issues
• Infections dropped by 10 percent
“I’m very impressed with the product! Our number of
infected hosts is down, the remediation is automatic and
effective, and its low resource footprint on hosts means
our users don’t notice any performance penalty.”
Michael Wilson, Director of IT, Synagro
As more and more organizations are forced to cope with tightening
IT budgets, the need for endpoint security that combines efficient
management with rock-solid protection against all types of threats is
becoming increasingly widespread. The impressive results Wilson has
achieved with Webroot proves this kind of robust, cost-effective endpoint
security is now readily available.
• Faster scanning (for example, the first scan takes only minutes
compared with the hours other AV solutions require, and Webroot’s
subsequent full system scans typically take two minutes or less)
In the unlikely event that an infection does occur on a Webroot-protected
machine, the process to remove the infection is much easier and far faster
than on conventionally-protected systems. Using rollback remediation
capability, SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection can undo every
action that a malicious piece of software executed and return the machine
to its state prior to the infection—in far less time than required by
traditional AV solutions.
About Webroot
Webroot is bringing the power of cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) to Internet security with its suite of Webroot SecureAnywhere® offerings for consumers and businesses, as well as
offering its security intelligence solutions to cybersecurity organizations, such as Palo Alto Networks, F5 Networks, Corero, Juniper, and others. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Colorado,
Webroot is the largest privately held Internet security organization based in the United States – operating globally across North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information on
our products, services and security visit: webroot.com, the Webroot Blog: webroot.com/blog or Webroot on Twitter: twitter.com/webroot.
World Headquarters
385 Interlocken Crescent
Suite 800
Broomfield, Colorado 80021 USA
800 772 9383
Webroot EMEA
6th floor, Block A,
1 George’s Quay Plaza
George’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland
+44 (0)870 1417 070
Webroot APAC
Suite 1402, Level 14, Tower A
821 Pacific Highway
Chatswood, NSW 2067, Australia
+61 (0) 2 8071 1900
© 2014 Webroot Inc. All rights reserved. Webroot, SecureAnywhere, and Webroot SecureAnywhere are trademarks or registered trademarks of Webroot Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista, and Internet
Explorer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mozilla and Firefox are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
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Copyright © Webroot Inc. » August 2014