Astaro Secures Major Kansas City Life Insurer


Ease of Use, Seamless Integration of Security Applications, and Chance to Streamline Cisco Infrastructure Drove Selection of Network Assurance Gateway Solutions

BURLINGTON, MA., April 25, 2006 -- Astaro Corporation today announced that the Kansas City Life Insurance Company (NASDAQ: KCLI) has selected Astaro's network assurance appliances to protect and secure its corporate data network following a rigorous competitive comparison determined no other solution offered Astaro's unique combination of advanced technology, ease of use, and price performance features. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City Life is a major, 109-year-old publicly-traded financial services company with annual revenues in excess of a half billion dollars and assets under management of approximately $35 billion.

"Few purchase decisions speak as clearly as this selection to the rapidly growing acceptance of our network assurance product advantages among corporations with the highest standards of security and reliability," said Alex Neihaus, vice president of marketing at Astaro. "There are few industries more familiar, more focused and more dependent on security than the financial services sector. That our solution brings added confidence to their all-important network infrastructure is real-world proof that Astaro(TM) Security Gateways have had integration and ease-of-use foremost in mind from day one.

According to Kansas City Life Senior Network Engineer, Keith Beatty, Astaro network assurance appliances were selected because they maximize network administrator productivity and will complement the organization's goal to reduce existing network security complexities. "Astaro appliances include the features that are important to me and which maximize the effectiveness of the four IT professionals who own the entire network infrastructure and are responsible for its availability, security and reliability," he said. Looking to maximize protection while minimizing administrative costs, Beatty said a key decision factor was Astaro's ease of use. "Astaro's solutions proved to be a great replacement for some aging Cisco® equipment," Beatty added.

Beatty's first introduction to Astaro occurred in 2001 when he deployed network appliances as remote all-in-one agency servers and discovered an early version of the Astaro software. "At that time I took a closer look," says Beatty, "and found there was a lot more to it, even then, than much of what I had just started seeing coming out of the Linux® security world."

When more recently Kansas City Life began to search for unified threat management appliances that could enhance network security and streamline its growing array of devices, he took a fresh look at Astaro. Summarizing the two principle reasons he recommended the Astaro solution, he said, "It works, and it delivers compelling value. In addition, Astaro offers an expanding set of appliances which allows us to grow as needed, they have developed a reputation for tremendous stability and reliability and they wrapped everything around their chief strength which is their graphical user interface."

Kansas City Life has purchased an Astaro Security Gateway 425, which Beatty is implementing in a multi-phase project at corporate headquarters, and six Astaro Security Gateway 110's which are being deployed to the home offices of key employees with access to remote data at Kansas City Life.

Product Specifics

The Astaro Security Gateway 425, designed to provide protection for medium-sized enterprises, divisions of large enterprises, and large enterprises, incorporates dedicated virus scanning hardware. This specialized processor is optimized to perform security functions such as content decompression and pattern matching in order to accelerate virus detection. It more than doubles virus scanning performance and, as a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), it enables software enhancements and upgrades to be downloaded and installed over the Internet. The 425 also features 2GB of DDR2 memory and 8 gigabit network ports, four of which are connected to a PCI-Express bus for very high levels of throughput.

The Astaro Security Gateway 110 is designed to provide protection for small business and branch and remote office. A built-in hard drive provides for quarantining of suspicious files and allows transaction logs to be stored locally. Its compact size, high reliability, and economical price make it a perfect fit for any small office environment.

About Kansas City Life Insurance Company

Kansas City Life Insurance Company (NASDAQ: KCLI) was established in 1895 in Kansas City, Missouri. It maintains an agency force of more than 1,400 independent agents serving 48 states and the District of Columbia. The company insures more than a half million policyholders. A publicly traded company, its home office in midtown Kansas City, Missouri, has a home office staff of more than 600 associates providing support for the company's agents and policyholders. The company's revenues are in excess of $500 million annually. Its web site is www.kclife.com .

About Astaro
Astaro Security Gateways control access to networks, guarantee availability and ensure compliance for businesses and enterprises worldwide, while reducing network administration costs. With Astaro Security Gateway, network administrators and designers achieve Network Assurance: functional, high-performance and safe business networks. Astaro's appliances have won numerous industry awards, and are protecting over 30,000 networks in 60 countries, including such organizations as Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Los Alamos National Labs, Stanford University and Watsco, Inc. Based in Burlington, MA and Karlsruhe, Germany, the Company's products are distributed by a worldwide network of 450 solutions partners who offer local support and services. For more information, visit the Astaro web site at www.astaro.com or view the Company's weblogs at www.scraptureblog.com/ and www.utmplanet.com/

-- # # # --

Astaro is a trademark of Astaro Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For More Information, Contact:

Amy Stucchi

amys@think-brain.com

508-647-0059

All Topics