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The smart switch

Abhinav Singh on smart hardware that helps an enterprise protect its network, manage bandwidth efficiently, and offer quality of service

Although enterprises are trying hard to plug all possible security holes, their networks remain vulnerable. As a result, network security has become the primary concern of enterprise and commercial network administrators.

It was once viewed merely as a firewall between the network and the Internet. The first driver for change came as enterprises began connecting their corporate networks to the Internet. These connections opened a door to the outside world, allowing limitless possibilities for network users but at the same time paving the way for intruders, hackers, data thieves and anyone else with malicious intent to access corporate networks. With the advent of sophisticated worms and viruses, old policies and devices have proven insufficient for the large-scale corporate networks that exist today.

Network managers are therefore looking to integrate end-to-end security throughout the network, with security policies and capabilities permeating every place and device in the network.

Smart switches...

"Smart switches bridge the gap between unmanaged and fully managed functionality. The key deciding points for migrating to smart switches are simplicity, affordability and performance" -Rajesh Sahore Country Manager, India Allied Telesyn

As companies focus on expanding their business and improving customer satisfaction, they use their networks to extend their market reach and communicate with their customers and partners quickly and cost-effectively. The converse of this phenomenon is that swift and agile e-business has opened up doors to security breaches. An organisation’s network is its communication hub, a business-to-business customer relationship and productivity tool. A secure network helps businesses run smoothly and keeps sensitive information secure and available. It has therefore become imperative for enterprises to have a reliable network.

Networks today have to cope with bandwidth intensive applications, sensitive data, and the presence of devices such as IP phones, WLAN access points, and IP video cameras. These new gadgets compete for resources with the existing mission-critical applications. The corporate network is therefore critical and its security essential to effectively manage the delivery of information and applications. Since companies are increasingly relying on networks as the strategic business infrastructure, it is important to ensure the high availability, security, scalability and control of their networks.

Enter the smart switch. Says Rajesh Sahore, Country Manager, India, Allied Telesyn: “Smart switches bridge the gap between unmanaged and fully-managed functionality. These switches suit those enterprises that require elementary Web-based management and security. The key deciding-points for migrating to smart switches are simplicity, affordability and performance.”

Smart switches support intelligent services that consistently address requirements from the desktop to the core and throughout the wide area network. Smart and intelligent switches help enterprises realise the benefits of deploying intelligent services on their networks. Critical to further optimising network operations are deployments of capabilities that make the network infrastructure highly available to accommodate time-critical needs, scalable to take care of growth, secure enough to protect confidential information, and capable of differentiating and controlling traffic flows.

...and what they do

Smart switches are helping enterprises meet the higher demands on the network. They assist in running sophisticated business applications by offering superior manageability, and facilitate higher volumes of traffic resulting in higher availability and resiliency.

They also aid organisations in maintaining tighter security measures because security is built into these switches. In this way, they make it easy for IT folk to add authentication and access control, and thus ensure defence against network threats to the privacy of networked communications. According to Sahore, “With applications and services becoming bandwidth-hungry, smart switches are capable of providing key features such as link aggregation, port mirroring, spanning tree and authentication. The switches have a Web-based management interface.”

Adds Tata Rao, Country Manager, SE-Enterprise, Cisco Systems India, “Smart switches also help in improving quality of service. They allow network administrators to prioritise mission-critical and bandwidth-intensive traffic such as ERP, IP telephony traffic, and computer-aided design over applications that are relatively insensitive to delays such as FTP or e-mail.”

He explains that it is undesirable to have a large file download destined for one port on a wiring-closet switch that will have quality implications such as increased latency in voice traffic that’s going to another port on the same switch. “This condition is avoided by ensuring that voice traffic is properly classified and prioritised throughout the network,” states Rao.

Applications such as Web browsing can be treated as a low priority and handled on a best-effort basis. In addition, with smart switches bandwidth can be allocated based on several criteria including MAC (Media Access Control) source address, MAC destination address, IP source address, IP destination address, and TCP or UDP port number. Bandwidth allocation is essential when network environments require service-level agreements or when it is necessary for the network manager to control the bandwidth given to certain users. Smart switches also help in maintaining access control lists (ACL) to guard against denial-of-service and other attacks. ACL can be used to restrict access to sensitive portions of the network by denying packets based on source and destination MAC addresses and IP addresses. ACL lookups are done in hardware, so forwarding performance is not compromised when implementing ACL-based security.

As application software and services are getting more demanding, switches with packed features at affordable prices is the need of the hour.

abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com