Network Segmentation
Not the sexiest of topics, but one that could potentially save your bacon. With all the security issues that have been in the news recently, network segmentation is another means of improving your security posture plus can have a secondary impact of improving performance.
The growth of a network can sneak up on you. Everything is straight forward and simple and then it’s not. Phones, PDA’s, BYOD, collaboration, remote users, new branch locations/offices, mergers…and it happens fast.
A typical network in a small to medium sized business can have:
- Servers and Core devices
- Wired and wireless segments
- VPN for remote office and users
- Virtual & physical elements to the network
- Voice
- CCTV (close-circuit television systems)
- Alarm Systems
- Building access control systems
- Manufacturing process control systems
SDN, 1Pv6 and 802.11ac wave 1&2 and security. For 2016, forecasts/predictions are security could be in the spotlight. Changing staffs work habits/times/devices and locations, make securing the network and systems even more challenging.
There are a host of benefits that segmenting your network can provide:
- Restrict access to critical information
- See how much traffic different departments/groups are using
- Limit the number of broadcasts/unknown unicasts in a VLAN
- Identify what role(s) a device has by IP address
- Ability to have multiple security levels in the network
- Providing data control
- Preserving resources in your environment (prevent a change from affecting traffic across whole network… limit the impact)
Ask our engineering staff about how network segmentation might be applied to your specific environment and use case(s). They love to share ideas.