Cisco “Re-Invents” Networking to Make It fit for the Future by Rahiel Nasir
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
www.networkingplus.co.uk JUNE 2017 FIXED & WIRELESS NETWORKS FOR ENTERPRISE USERS Rise of the nodes Take IT to the bank A new view of the network Security devices Ocado simplifies Uptime is money for Does SD-WAN Handy appliances to smart factory companies in the really represent the help stop cyber attacks architectures with financial sector future of enterprise from causing havoc to mesh network Real World Networks, networking? your business News, p2 p8 Feature, pp11-13 Off-the-shelf, p14 Cisco “re-invents” networking to make it fit for the future By Rahiel Nasir What’s described as the “network of manageable” and allowing IT to focus on the future” has been unveiled by Cisco. strategic business needs. The company claims its intuitive system The company believes it is in a unique constantly learns, adapts and automates position because the vast majority of the to optimise operations, and stops security world’s internet traffc runs on its networks. threats in their tracks As a result, it has been able to capture According to Cisco, organisations and analyse valuable data to provide IT are currently managing their networks teams with insights to spot anomalies and through traditional IT processes that are anticipate issues in real-time. not sustainable. The frm says its new The technologies behind Cisco’s intuitive system is the result of years of R&D network include hardware, software and a aimed at re-inventing networking for an suite of services designed to work together age where engineers managing hundreds as a single system. of devices today will be expected to For instance, the new Network Data handle a million by 2020. Platform and Assurance analytics platform By automating the edge of the network categorises and correlates the vast amount It’s claimed the “intuitive network” creates an intelligent platform that will help businesses and embedding machine learning and of data running on the network. It then unlock new opportunities and solve previously unsolvable challenges. analytics at a foundational level, Cisco uses machine learning to turn that into boasts that it is making the “unmanageable predictive analytics, business intelligence and actionable insights. It interprets data in to analyse metadata traffc patterns. This context which, according to Cisco, is what is designed to identify the fngerprints of enables the network to provide new insights, known threats, even in encrypted traffc, resulting in better security, more customised without impacting data privacy. experiences and faster operations. (continued on page 2) The network also utilises Cisco’s Talos Is SD-WAN the future of enterprise cyber intelligence and machine learning networking? Feature pp11-13. ICO fines council for data breach during outsourcing process The Information Commissioner’s Offce Heartbleed vulnerability in its systems (ICO) has fned Gloucester City Council by using a SonicWall appliance which (GCC) £100,000 after a cyber attacker contained an affected version of OpenSSL. accessed council employees’ sensitive By that time, the notice points out that a personal information. patch had been released to fx the faw. But The attacker, who claimed to be part while the council intended to update its of the Anonymous hacking group, took software using the patch, this ended up being advantage of a weakness in GCC’s overlooked during the outsourcing process. website in July 2014. This led to more The ICO investigation concluded that the than 30,000 emails being downloaded council did not have suffcient processes in from council mailboxes. The messages place to ensure its systems had been updated contained fnancial and sensitive while changes to suppliers were made, and information relating to around 35 former fned the organisation for contravening sec- or current staff. The breach also resulted tion 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998. in Twitter accounts belonging to senior “Businesses and organisations must council offcers being compromised. understand they need to do everything The attack exploited the Heartbleed bug they can to keep people’s personal in OpenSSL and occurred when GCC was information safe, and that includes being outsourcing its IT systems. In its penalty extra vigilant during periods of change or notice to the council, the ICO stated that uncertainty,” said ICO group enforcement Gloucester’s IT staff had identifed the manager Sally Anne Poole. n Net+ 1706 p1 (Cover) RN v1.indd 1 04/07/2017 15:45 news register online @ www.networkingplus.co.uk and find out more Cisco is introducing its Catalyst 9000 switches, Ocado open source software to built from the ground up to target the demands of mobility, cloud, IoT and security. streamline data centre architectures Reinventing Ocado Technology a division of the designed to process the vast amounts online supermarket has come up with of realtime data generated in smart a free and open source package designed factories such as automated warehouses. networking to simplify data centre architectures for Chris Dabrowski, G of infrastructure, (continued from page 1) smart factories. operations and site reliability engineering at eanwhile, daytoday tasks such The Kubermesh package uses container Ocado Technology, believes all this has the as confguration, provisioning and based technology and the open source potential to revolutionise the way companies troubleshooting are automated using SD- Kubernetes system to implement an on approach onsite data centre architectures. Access. Cisco explains that this enables premise private cloud architecture. Ocado e adds Kubermesh is an elegant and IT teams to move away from tedious says this then enables desktop computers costeffcient solution to running our highly traditional processes to automating to be easily confgured to become nodes automated customer fulflment centres based intent, making it possible to manage that support the compute or storage Ocado is running Kubermesh at its highly- on a distributed network of computing nodes millions of devices in minutes. The functionality typically delivered by a high automated customer fulfilment centre which spread around the warehouse rather than company claims SD-Access slashes performance server in a data centre. includes thousands of robots roaming on top highperformance servers concentrated in the time it takes to adapt the network, By distributing data centre functionality of a grid. one large data centre. improves issue resolution from weeks in a mesh network of nodes, it’s claimed Ocado is planning to use the same and months to hours, and dramatically Kubermesh removes the need for a dedicated capex and opex associated with maintaining container technology and Kubernetes system reduces security breach impact. data centre and complex networking onpremise highperformance servers. to build an upcoming massive multiplayer ASA, oyal Caribbean Cruises and infrastructure. Ocado says this leads to The company adds that the nodes are online game that teaches secondary school ipro are among 5 global enterprises and signifcant energy savings and reduces the faulttolerant, secure, fexible, and are students the principles of AI. n organisations that are conducting early feld trials with the new solutions. Cisco says initial analysis with these customers as well as its own testing have shown SD-Access Cambridge school installs passive optical LAN can reduce network provisioning time by per cent, improve issue resolution by 80 per okia has deployed its frst passive optical based thernet LA upgrade because of the same infrastructure. okia adds that it cent, cut security breach impact by 48 per LA in the . The installation was carried its futureproof capabilities. okia adds can provide 200 times longer coverage from cent, and lead to opex savings of 1 per cent. out for an unnamed school in Cambridge that its infrastructure provides a secure, a single central location than a copperbased ith this new approach, Cisco is by local systems integrator, DIP. fexible and scalable network that allows LA, eliminating the need for euipment changing the fundamental blueprint for Based on fbre optic infrastructure and the school to signifcantly improve the closets on each foor or at every 100 meters. networking with reimagined hardware GPO (gigabit passive optical network) highspeed internet and educational The solution is capable of supporting all and the most advanced software, states technology, okia claims its passive optical services it provides. video, voice and data reuirements over a the frm. This shift from hardwarecentric LA outperforms more traditional solutions ith optical fbre cabling having single fbre optic cable, and has also proven to to softwaredriven networking will enable in key areas of speed, cost and ease of use. virtually unlimited capacity, the frm be effective in delivering a more ecofriendly customers to experience a uantum leap in According to the company, the school claims its solution can be easily and cost solution that removes the need for additional agility, productivity and performance. n chose its system over a traditional copper effciently upgraded to 10G or 40G using network cabinets and IT switches. n networking june 2017 2 Net+ 1706 p2 (news) RN v2.indd 2 04/07/2017 16:07 register online @ www.networkingplus.co.uk and find out more news THE WORLD ACCORDING TO... Universal promotes new Richard Jonker, VP of SMB product line, Netgear Using 10G to alleviate the network films via virtual network pressures of IoT connected devices niversal Pictures International has teamed up with Devicescape to build Businesses must embrace new with additional traffic that will be required locationtargeted promotional campaigns technologies to remain agile in a in both small and large organisations. for flm releases across the . competitive environment, and make the Ten gigabit copper, which allows 10G The company will also harness what move to 10G connectivity to support their bandwidth over existing infrastructure, Devicescape describes as the rich increasingly burdened networks. is becoming more affordable and datasets generated by its Engage platform The Internet of Things is making encouraging widespread adoption.