Sales Tools

Data Networking in a Hyperconnected World (VII)

Five building blocks for Business-Optimized Networking

Secure and Manage the Resulting Infrastructure
One of the greatest impacts of hyperconnectivity is in the security management area, and in the management area overall. This building block includes two key areas: layered defense and autonomic networking. Layered defense ensures that there are no single points of security failure in a network. This is accomplished by using multiple approaches to security enforcement in different parts of the network,
operating under enterprise-wide policies. Layered defense is further bolstered by adopting an open security philosophy that embraces partnerships and an ecosystem leveraging security leaders such as Symantec, CheckPoint and SourceFire.

Layered defense in a hyperconnected networking environment must provide highly scalable capabilities, including pervasive end-point security for such diverse devices as mobility and integration with Microsoft NAP, media security to protect critical multimedia data in transit, virtualization and accelerated perimeter security to logically separate different forms of traffic over a converged IP network, and core
network security incorporating dynamic threat protection and real-time device
vulnerability fingerprinting. Hyperconnectivity demands simplification, with less human intervention and fewer demands for IT skills. On the management front, the answer lies in the longer-term deployment of truly autonomic networking. Autonomic networking is a vision for building self-managing converged data networks that can dynamically adjust to changing conditions to optimize network performance and application/user QoE.

Autonomic networks are:
o Self-configuring: Automatic configuration and reconfiguration of network elements according to policy
o Self-healing: Automatic fault detection, correlation, diagnosis and remediation according to policy
o Self-optimizing: Automatic continuous monitoring of the performance and the dynamic adjustment of QoS mechanisms according to policy
o Self-protecting: Dynamic detection of new attacks, and isolating these attacks to limit business impact
A key technology is to leverage Service- Oriented Architecture (SOA) techniques
to bridge configuration, policy, governance and SLA-management business applications and processes with the operation of the IT infrastructure, including the network, servers and storage.
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