Dubai - MENA Herald: Avaya is announcing a new foundational approach to network security that helps reduce the growing number of breaches that compromise data integrity and privacy. The new approach enables organizations to create stealth, hyper-segments within their networks that are invisible to hackers and provide the elasticity to protect the everywhere perimeter.
While trends such as mobility, IoT and cloud computing promise incalculable opportunities, they make it nearly impossible to determine the location of organization’s boundaries and thus, real and potential security threats stymie progress. The reality today is that an organization’s perimeter is now everywhere, which makes it even more critical that security is a core component of the network architecture that is capable of extending to any potential access point - whether that’s in the cloud, a mobile device or a sensor unit in a HVAC system.
Hyper-segmentation -- the ability to create secure “swim lanes” within the overall network based on a particular function, location or service — offers a means of addressing security breaches by limiting how far a hacker can go once they gain access. But, while IT professionals agree that end-to-end segmentation is essential for security (see related research), few currently deploy such a strategy for various reasons, including it’s too complex, too resource intensive or don’t believe it’s possible.
Avaya Networking offers a different approach to securing the “everywhere perimeter” that comprises three synergistic capabilities:
Hyper-Segmentation: The ability to create stealth segments that span the entire network.
Native Stealth: The characteristic of a hyper-segment that is invisible to hackers.
Automated Elasticity: The capability to create and remove hyper-segments automatically
Avaya’s capabilities start at the foundational layer --a shared control plane — to automatically manage hyper-segments seamlessly and invisibly across the organization. Avaya SDN and identity technologies eliminate the tradeoff between security and complexity by automating the onboarding and access of devices, users, switches, and servers to make protecting and managing every-where access effortless.
Avaya’s capabilities are comprised of the following Avaya products:
Fabric Connect, Fabric Attach, and Fabric Extend (software feature on Avaya Switches)
Identity Engines (network access software)
Open Networking Adapter (open server software on a pocket-sized appliance)
SDN Controller (software delivered today on a server tomorrow bundled with Avaya Fabric Orchestrator delivered on a server)
WLAN 9100 (wireless controller software delivered on Avaya access points)
Deployment and management services
Quotes:
“End-to-end network segmentation has been possible for some time; however, the likely reason that most organizations have not implemented is that its arduous nature made it impractical. Avaya is putting forward a technology that should allow organizations to actually be able to implement and maintain the technology and work within their current staffing envelope.”
Mike Fratto, Research Director, Business Technology and Software, Current Analysis
“As the number of network security breaches reach staggering proportions - an increase of 38% in just the past year alone - hackers seem to be just one step ahead of the latest security technologies. Avaya’s approach to network security begins at the core and extends wherever the business needs it to be. Our hyper-segmentation, native stealth and automated elasticity capabilities creates safety zones that hackers can’t see, and therefore won’t be able to access.”
Marc Randall, senior vice president and GM, Avaya Networking
“At any hotel in Las Vegas, instant access to both real-time and historical surveillance data is crucial. With our secure Avaya solution, all applications are isolated yet run over the same physical infrastructure. There is no breach in connectivity among the separated systems. They all run independent of one another. The Avaya network has never let us down. We’ve never had a failure of the live video feed or been unable to retrieve past footage on the property.”
Charles Robinson, Director of IT, Downtown Grand
“The City of Taylor, with a long and successful history with Avaya for the past 15 years, has constantly relied on Avaya to provide its network infrastructure and network virtualization technology to seamlessly interconnect 14 municipal locations. The stealth networking capability that Fabric Connect provides helps to protect sensitive applications and confidential data, and it aids PCI compliance for the City’s point of sale system. Our relationship with Avaya is a strong, proven one. In every initiative that we achieve, Avaya is always on the forefront, solving our complex problems and coming up with the solution that works best for us.”
