Nov. 5, 2009 (PR Newswire) --

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Palo Alto Networks(TM), the leader in next-generation firewalls, today announced that DTE Energy has deployed PA-4000 Series next-generation firewalls for improved visibility of network traffic and for the ability to manage non-business applications running on its network.

DTE Energy is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide. Its operating units include Detroit Edison, an electric utility serving 2.2 million customers; MichCon, a natural gas utility serving 1.2 million customers; and other non-utility, energy businesses focused on gas pipelines and storage, coal transportation, unconventional gas production, and power and industrial projects.

Prior to Palo Alto Networks, DTE Energy lacked full visibility into the traffic on its 14,000-user network, and attempting to gain visibility and correlate information from disparate log files was a time consuming and fruitless task. Other solutions DTE Energy evaluated could not deliver the visibility its IT department required, and lacked useful reporting across limited data. Now, DTE Energy can see the applications on its network for improved security, and knows which users are employing which applications. With this information, they can enable appropriate policies to facilitate productivity, and engage in remediation where needed.

"With Palo Alto Networks we found the visibility into our network we were seeking," said John Townsend, Manager, Information Protection and Security at DTE Energy. "Now we get better visibility into what's going on inside our network and into the applications attempting to access our network. From a bandwidth perspective, we don't want to be too restrictive, but we do want to ensure appropriate resources for our business traffic."

"DTE Energy, like many enterprise IT leaders, recognized the need for application visibility and control, and chose the only firewalls that can deliver -- Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls," said Larry Link, Palo Alto Networks VP of sales.