Applications are the backbone of business-critical operations, and their use is increasing at an almost exponential rate – especially among distributed enterprises with multiple remote offices. To support this, many are switching from performance-inhibited wide-area networks (WANs) to software-defined wide-area-network (SD-WAN) architectures.
The definition of network firewalls has changed. As an increasing number of businesses move toward hybrid networks and begin seeking firewall capabilities in the cloud, cloud vendors are also offering native firewall capabilities to their clients. This year Gartner revised their description of the firewall market to include firewalls with the following features:
One of the natural traits of people is to long for the “good old days.” It is that magical era we tend to memorialize as a time when things were simpler and uncomplicated. That is certainly true of network security. Remember when all you had to do was simply protect your network perimeter? Can you even define what your network perimeter is anymore? It’s not so easy to answer that question today.
Digital transformation is becoming an increasingly popular course of action for enterprises trying to keep pace with emerging market trends, fluctuating customer demands, and increased competition. But traditional network architectures weren’t built to handle the types of workloads, and complexities, that arise as a result. Even worse, in an attempt to take on the work these architectures – post-digital transformation – can actually compromise business-critical services and network performance.
Networks continue to grow in both size and complexity. Enterprises need modern security solutions that better protect their network traffic. Many organizations are retiring their traditional firewalls to implement next-generation firewalls (NGFWs). NGFWs are able to inspect traffic at a much deeper and more detailed level than their predecessors. They can also detect hidden threats in encrypted traffic. This capability is especially important as encryption technologies continue to evolve and more and more traffic is encrypted. An NGFW is a vital component of your security arsenal, but not all NGFWs are created equal. An effective firewall provides robust security through a simple management platform while meeting the speed and performance needs of your enterprise.
As enterprises continue to invest in virtualization, keeping a data center – and the data and applications they store – secure is the cornerstone of success. There are two security concerns that are quickly becoming the most prominent, and Fortinet has answers to them both.
As enterprises modernize their IT infrastructure to meet evolving business demands the conversation of security is always top of mind. More and more companies are now managing a distributed enterprise, with remote offices and branches that are forcing them to move away from a highly centralized IT model to one that extends to the edge. How will your security strategy have to evolve to meet these new security demands as you’re now securing more than just the perimeter? As one of the emerging leaders in SD-WAN technology, we looked at some tips from Fortinet on this topic. Check out these key requirements for distributed enterprise firewall security.
Securing the enterprise is an evolving challenge today. In order to effectively manage today’s enterprise, you must be able to draw a complete picture of everything connected to your network. Enterprises are implementing a Network Access Control solution (NAC) to identify, assess, and enforce access control on any and all devices before they connect to the network. A NAC solution provides the basic necessity of knowing what devices IT is tasked with securing. A NAC solution can identify and profile each subsequent device wanting to connect, as well as:
With an increasing number of enterprises investing in digital transformation and the software defined data center (SDDC), IT leaders are getting accustomed to managing overwhelming large volumes of data and business applications. With this shift, network security is proving to be a foundational (and required) layer when it comes to building the data center needed to drive business of today.
With the expansion of the Internet of Things, the BYOD movement and emerging wireless technologies, you may be realizing its time to invest in a more modern approach to networking security in order to stay competitive, and secure, in the global environment.
