As individuals, many of us struggle to keep up with the latest innovations. How many of us are waiting for the prices to come down before investing in a high-definition TV? In this case, waiting can prove beneficial. But companies and organizations that wait to take advantage of the latest technical advancements are at risk of being left behind.
Figure 1. Innovation Timeline
As illustrated in Figure 1, the innovations of the past 10 years are enabling a more productive, responsive, and collaborative workforce and customer community-resulting in increased interaction, reduced expenses, and improved profits. This phenomenon is nothing short of a digital communications revolution. There is no question about the benefits it brings. The question is: Are you ready? More importantly: Is your network ready?
Are You Ready?
Cisco posed this question in 1998. It was not just a marketing campaign, it was a sincere question-and one that is as relevant today as it was then. Many companies invested heavily in networking technologies just before the turn of the century. And if they invested in routers and switches from Cisco, the likelihood is that those devices are still powering their networks today. However, the features and functions that are required to support today's interactive, multimedia communications; to enable an increasingly mobile workforce; and to protect the network and the data that traverses it are much more advanced:
• Peer-to-peer communications and wireless communications have exposed networks to potential security risks that traditional firewalls do not address.
• New industry and government regulations require heightened security for data at rest and in motion as well as reporting mechanisms to validate such security.
• Video communications, including video conferencing, IP video surveillance, digital signage, and TelePresence, require increased bandwidth as well as advanced quality-of-service (QoS) mechanisms and deeper queuing buffers not offered by older devices.
• Business processes are morphing to adapt to a new fast-changing, always open, partner-inclusive, and global model.
• The need to shorten development cycles, decision-making processes, and the entire time to market is dictating the need for all employees to have on-demand access to applications, data, and each other regardless of their location.
• And an increased focus on the well-being of the environment is changing the way we all do business-from reducing travel to improving power efficiency, to ensuring the proper disposal of waste-including discarded IT equipment.
To address all of these factors requires an intelligent, integrated network with staunch resiliency and leading-edge technology support not found in turn-of-the-century networking equipment. However, there is another challenge-budgets. In times of current economic fluctuations, chief financial officers (CFOs) may consider curtailing IT investments. But as Jim Metzler and Steve Taylor of Webtorials point out in their paper titled "Is Your Network Ready for the 21st Century?":
The successful company will look at this as a time to be proactive and to make a bold step to upgrade the networks in order to provide superior services at a lower total cost. Business demands will not get simpler, and competition will not decrease. The best way to establish and maintain a competitive edge is with a bold initiative to upgrade your network design so you'll be ready for the next decade and its challenges.
Therefore, companies and organizations with an eye toward the future are reexamining their network to assess their ability to take advantage of new technologies and making smart investments that will serve their networking needs today and well into the future. Because newer solutions from Cisco provide features that enable improved productivity, heightened protection, and simplified operations, a growing number of Cisco customers are finding that a technology refresh can be a valuable investment for achieving technology readiness and lowering their network total cost of ownership (TCO).
Security: New Threats, New Defenses
Security increases the need for a network refresh. In fact, in a survey of enterprises by Forrester Research, Inc., 42 percent of the respondents listed security as the IT initiative that is necessitating network upgrades. This urgency is accelerated by new applications creating dramatic change in network traffic patterns and new business models causing increased vulnerability in the network.
Over the past 5 years, the proliferation of peer-to-peer (P2P) and instant messaging traffic has profoundly affected networks-not only because they are continuously increasing bandwidth requirements, but because this type of traffic bypasses traditional security technologies, such as firewalls, which tend to reside in the core or data center. Moreover, the nature and frequency of malicious attacks is changing.
Figure 2. Application Intelligence and Security
To mitigate these attacks, application intelligence and security-including a rapid and flexible means of identification through technologies such as deep packet inspection-is needed throughout the network, not just in the data center (Figure 2). However, many of the tools available today were not designed with deep packet inspection as a requirement but to provide matching for predefined fields in well-known protocol headers. If an attack uses a field outside the limited range of inspection of these features, a business is left without a defense against the attack.
Not only are network traffic patterns changing, but so is the profile of network users. Open networks and global access place new security demands on the network. Employees, contractors, vendors, and guests all need access to corporate networks. Devices such as laptops, phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless access points, and printers also need controlled access. To safely accommodate all these users, networks must provide secure access control, which enables authentication of a user or device using any number of different credentials (such as username and password, secure ID, device credential, and device posture). Administrators must have the ability to define and apply access rights, or privileges, based on a variety of different criteria.
To address these and other security requirements, Cisco is making proactive security and application intelligence an integrated part of the network. This integration means implementing pervasive intelligent technologies into the very fabric of the network in a manner that does not impede network performance and ultimately simplifies security management. Some of the newer technologies and solutions in this area include the Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 Supervisor Engine 32 with Programmable Intelligent Services Accelerator (PISA), Cisco Trusted Security (TrustSec) architecture, and other additions to the Cisco Self-Defending Network.
The Cisco Catalyst Supervisor Engine 32 PISA embeds multigigabit deep packet inspection capability into the Cisco Catalyst 6500 switching platform, enabling hardware acceleration of services that offers new levels of application intelligence, integrated security, and operational manageability for enterprise campus access and WAN routing. Hardware-accelerated Flexible Packet Matching (FPM) delivers protection against worms and viruses and zero-day attacks by providing next-generation "super access-control-list (ACL)" pattern-matching capability for granular and customized packet filtering. FPM allows administrators to match on arbitrary bits of a packet at arbitrary depth (offset) in the packet header and payload, hence allowing detection of malicious patterns deep within the packet. To simplify security operations, FPM can be controlled from a central management node using Cisco Security Manager.
Cisco TrustSec is a new architecture that takes advantage of existing investments to facilitate deployment of security measures in a pervasive, coordinated manner without compromising business velocity. Cisco TrustSec incorporates:
• Role-Based Access Control, which provides consistent role-based identity and controlled access to critical applications and resources
• Converged Policy Framework, which converges the various roles, servers, and access definitions and simplifies the management of identity policies
• Pervasive integrity and confidentiality, which safeguards against data leakage in support of regulatory requirements
Cisco has also made numerous upgrades to the products that comprise the Self-Defending Network, including Cisco Security Agent 6.0, Cisco Intrusion Prevention System 6.1, Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis and Response System 6.0 (Cisco Security MARS 6.0), Cisco Security Manager 3.2, incorporation of web filtering into Cisco integrated services routers, an upgrade to the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Firewall Services Module, and new features for the Cisco ACE Web Application Firewall and voice-aware Cisco IOS® Firewall. Together, these security products provide comprehensive network, application, and content security for the communications infrastructure; in the process, they help address corporate security, risk management, and compliance requirements.
"It's about protecting your company, its assets, and its employees," says Chris Whitesock, information security officer for Coastal Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Protecting our network is fundamental, but protecting all the data that is stored and transmitted across that network is just as important. We put a lot of time and effort into finding solutions that would fulfill our vision for comprehensive data security and believe in the Cisco Self-Defending Network solution strategy as a way to bring that vision to life."
Regulatory Compliance: How Technology Can Help
Around the world, governments, major corporations, and even the public are insisting that organizations take appropriate steps to help ensure the proper protection of both corporate and personal communications and information. As a result, industry and government bodies are continually introducing new regulations. Worldwide, according to Burton Group, 114,000 new regulations have been introduced since 1981.
Table 1 shows examples of some well-known compliance regulations and the type of information each one is intended to protect.
Table 1. Several Well-Known Compliance Standards
Helping ensure a business's regulatory compliance is a corporate concern, but it poses the greatest challenge for IT managers. Most regulations do not specifically state what they require from an IT perspective, and often several different regulations apply to a given organization, making it difficult for IT managers to know what to do to meet their compliance goals. Because the consequences of noncompliance can be quite severe, including fines and even jail time for egregious offences, many IT managers are understandably apprehensive about this important subject.
As organizations are challenged to respond to the growing list of compliance-related IT demands, many find that their networks, which have served them well for some years, cannot provide the new functions required to address their security and compliance needs.
The current portfolio of routing and switching platforms from Cisco, such as the Cisco integrated services routers and the Cisco Catalyst 3750, Catalyst 3750-E, Catalyst 4500, Catalyst 4500-E, and Catalyst 6500 Series Switches, are equipped with many new capabilities that earlier platforms cannot support. Table 2 lists some of the security features and technologies available in newer Cisco platforms. These technologies help companies to comply with regulations by providing tools for confidentiality, integrity, availability, and auditability.
Table 2. Security Features and Technologies Available in Newer Cisco Platforms
*Cisco Catalyst 4500 and 6500 Series Switches compared to the Cisco Catalyst 5000 and 5500 Series Switches
**Cisco 7600 Series Routers and Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches compared to the Cisco 7500 Series Routers
***Cisco 3800 and 2800 Series Integrated Services Routers compared to previous Cisco routers for the branch office
IP Telephony: Enabling a More Responsive Workforce
With the advent of tools and technologies that increase the productivity of the workforce, it is no surprise that the adoption of IP telephony and voice over IP (VoIP) is rapidly increasing. Location and presence technologies that allow users to instantaneously identify available resources are enabling rapid problem resolution and decision making. Dynamic call routing for contact centers is allowing companies to staff their call centers with geographically dispersed resources and to automatically avoid service disruption if an outage occurs at any location. The integration of web technologies with IP telephony is allowing companies to significantly improve customer relationships.
Because VoIP has been in deployments for several years, some IT personnel assume that their existing network can provide the support needed for a VoIP deployment-and many of them are discovering they are mistaken. At the minimum, VoIP requires bandwidth allocation and queuing mechanisms to ensure QoS. For many older networking devices and even some current ones, the mechanisms are either nonexistent or insufficient. Also, the deployment and ongoing use of VoIP is greatly simplified by Power over Ethernet (PoE), which is not widely supported in older devices. Additionally, new wireless technologies, such as voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) and dual-mode phones that combine cellular and Wi-Fi communications, require features that are available only in the latest wireless access points and wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers.
Today's Cisco Catalyst series switches and Cisco integrated services routers allow companies and organizations to take advantage of the productivity and cost-saving benefits of VoIP while also simplifying the deployment of VoIP through:
• Power over Ethernet, Cisco Discovery Protocol, and Intelligent Power Management, which help enable the infrastructure to automatically recognize an IP phone, provide the appropriate configuration and QoS, and negotiate the precise level of power required
• Extensive queuing mechanisms (with simplified configuration using AutoQoS) and deep transmit buffers, which help ensure the quality and consistency of calls while also safe-guarding the performance of other business-critical applications
• Support for 802.11n, wireless QoS, and Call Admission Control (CAC), which enable wireless networks to provide the same level of bandwidth and QoS to wireless VoIP endpoints as the wired network provides to desktop IP phones
IP Video: Solutions to Promote Learning, Safety, and Collaboration
In today's global marketplace, companies are looking to their networks to bring their employees, customers, and business partners together. Moving beyond simple voice communications, enterprises are turning to rich-media applications such as video to increase worker productivity by improving collaboration, communication, and training, while reducing overall costs. In addition, advancements in digital video are making it possible for companies to use their IP networks to improve physical security through IP video surveillance, and to improve their customer reach through digital signage.
To take full advantage of these innovations, companies need to be sure that their network is ready to meet the demands that video applications place on the infrastructure, including increased bandwidth requirements and the need for advanced QoS tools to ensure delivery. As a developer and supplier of both video solutions and the IP infrastructure on which they reside, Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver the technologies needed to support a variety of video deployments. These technologies include:
• Enhanced QoS mechanisms to help ensure the delivery of high-quality video without disrupting other business-critical traffic
• Application intelligence features, which provide deep packet inspection and application awareness, allowing IT staff to differentiate between business-critical video streams and noncritical streams
• High-availability technologies and features to ensure delivery; because video is highly compressed and, therefore, extremely sensitive to packet loss, the network must support fast convergence with subsecond failover mechanisms to ensure minimal video stream interruption
• Network and device scalability, which helps enable companies and organizations to implement video either as an incremental deployment or a widespread roll-out
Table 3 lists some newer Cisco features and technologies that help enable all forms of video communications.
Table 3. Cisco Products and Technologies for Video Communications
Ubiquitous Access: Giving Users What They Need, When They Need It, Regardless of Where They Are
There was a time when companies were based primarily in one, perhaps a few locations. It was a time when employees lived in nearby communities and came into the office every day. And it was a time when all the resources the employees needed were physically located in the office in which they worked. For many of today's workers, that time has passed.
Today's companies and organizations are becoming more geographically dispersed. Employees are increasingly working from their homes and remote sites, and the tools and information they need may be spread across several sites. And even those who are "in the office" must have access to applications and data while they are in conference rooms or in the corporate cafeteria. It is a global, mobile workforce.
What today's businesses need is a flexible, cost-effective architecture that enables the secure, consistent delivery of services to all network users, regardless of their location or connection type. This scenario requires a comprehensive, integrated network that provides converged WAN edge services as well as unified wired and wireless access and makes it possible to centralize applications and distribute access to any endpoint, as needed.
At the edge, the proper WAN solution allows companies and organizations to link hundreds or even thousands of branch offices to headquarters; enables access to data and applications in milliseconds all over the world; enables real-time collaboration among multiple sites; provides high-quality voice and video to all locations-all while protecting all traffic with a consistent security policy. Beyond that, this network can also be used to extend the same secure, consistent services to teleworkers and partners through the Internet or extranet.
This WAN solution must act not only as the aggregation point for WAN connectivity, but also as the aggregation point for all services that are extended to the branch-office users, including security and voice or video over IP, as well as optimized access to mission-critical applications and data. In short, it must deliver services to branch-office users with the same quality and performance afforded to campus users. This scenario requires a highly available WAN infrastructure to enable nonstop communications; integrated security to provide full WAN security, data protection, and compliance; and application intelligence to enable consistent service delivery. The latest additions to the Cisco portfolio of WAN devices, including the Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Router and the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 32 PISA, are specifically designed to address the need for converged services coupled with the performance and capacity required for WAN aggregation.
Inside the network, a unified wired and wireless network can provide transparent mobile access-but this network must be reliable, pervasive, and easy to maintain. Older access points have limited capacity and capabilities. They are also autonomous, meaning they must be individually managed and secured.
Figure 3. Evolution of Wireless Technologies
The next-generation Cisco Unified Wireless Network, which includes new WLAN controllers and new wireless access points, supports 802.11n (Figure 3) for increased wireless coverage and capacity, enhanced RF tools for ease of deployment, VoWLAN, guest services, and Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) for centralized management and security policy control. Together with Cisco Catalyst switch features such as enhanced PoE and integrated security, the Cisco Unified Wireless Network facilitates ubiquitous mobile computing over a secure, high-performance, converged network.
Being Environmentally Responsible: Important to Your Company, Important to Cisco
Cisco is committed to helping businesses and organizations in their efforts to be more environmentally responsible. With respect to network migration, Cisco can help in several ways: by providing newer products that are more environmentally friendly, by providing new solutions that enable companies to reduce their own contribution to carbon emissions by reducing travel, and providing programs that help ensure the safe disposal of older equipment.
With the goal of making products that are more environmentally friendly, Cisco is continually searching for ways to improve product performance while maintaining or reducing energy demands. Efforts to incorporate energy-efficient design criteria include innovations such as the Cisco Integrated Services Routers, the Cisco Catalyst modular and fixed switches, and the recently announced Cisco Aggregation Services Routers.
When measuring power efficiency, it is important that companies look not just at the power consumption of a device, but also at the functions the device is performing for that power "cost." As such, companies should consider the functions that a device performs and the speed at which it performs them compared to having the same functions performed on several discreet devices. Add to this situation the fact that integrated services devices consume less rack space than separate appliances, and the result is decreased cooling requirements in the raised floor. Based on these criteria, the Cisco WAN edge routers have achieved up to a twentyfold increase in power efficiency over the Cisco routers of 2000. And the Cisco branch-office routers are four times more efficient than similar offerings from six leading competitors.
In the campus, the modular design of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch with the ability to replace standalone security, WLAN control, and application control devices with integrated service modules also helps achieve greater power efficiency. In the category of fixed and stackable switches, Miercom recently announced that the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E, Catalyst 3560-E, Catalyst 3750, Catalyst 3560, and Catalyst 2960 Series Switches are the first products that they designate as "Certified Green." This designation is based on the criteria of: efficient power draw under various real-world network conditions, high-efficiency power supply operation with intelligent power management capabilities, and superior product efficiency, including VLAN, remote management, and other green-enabling features.
In the data center, companies can also benefit from the use of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 modular switches with integrated services and power supplies that are 90-percent efficient. Also, the practice of network virtualization can help improve power and cooling efficiencies. For example, using the Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors storage switching in conjunction with the Cisco Catalyst 4948 Switch virtualized fabric can increase storage usage by up to 70 percent. This solution can have a significant effect on slowing power consumption growth and can enable the use of previously unidentified power capacity in an existing facility.
Reducing travel, whether by car or plane, is another way to have a positive effect on the environment. Air travel for a single, in-person meeting held in Chicago, with participants from London, New York City, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco, produces 6.295 tons of CO2(Figure 4) It takes 1 hectare an entire year to absorb that amount of CO2.
Figure 4. CO2 Generated by Air Travel
Cisco offers a variety of IP-based collaboration solutions, including IP phone and video conferencing, WebEx® web-based conferencing, and TelePresence, which can be used to replace in-person meetings. As mentioned previously, these online collaborative technologies solutions rely on advanced features and technologies, many of which are available only in newer Cisco routing and switching platforms.
Moreover, many Cisco routing and switching platforms are designed to prolong system and component longevity through platform extensibility, service intelligence, component reuse, and sharing (forward and backward compatibility). All these factors keep Cisco platforms working in your network for longer periods of time-maximizing the investment while minimizing e-waste.
An environmental concern that may arise when considering a network migration is how to dispose of the old equipment (e-waste) properly. E-waste is not biodegradable, and may contain heavy metals or other toxic substances. As a result, used computer or networking equipment is frequently banned from landfills.
As part of its commitment to the environment, Cisco offers several programs to address the proper handling and disposal of older equipment. The Cisco Technology Migration Program (TMP), which offers incentives for customers to trade in older Cisco products for discounts against the purchase of newer Cisco products, includes equipment reclamation processes that are specifically designed to reduce the accumulation of scrap equipment in landfill sites.
Cisco also offers the "Takeback and Recycle" program to properly dispose of surplus products that have reached their end of useful life. This service is open to all business users of Cisco and Scientific Atlanta equipment as well as its associated brands and subsidiaries. Equipment that is returned to Cisco through this program is disposed of in an environmentally safe manner using processes that comply with the WEEE (EU Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) regulations, all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines, and U.S. environmental laws at all levels of government. Cisco provides documentation about product disposition when the recycling process is complete. And, upon request, Cisco also provides a Certificate of Destruction, which releases the customer from further liability for the equipment returned through the Takeback and Recycle program.
Summary: Benefits of Migrating
By upgrading to newer Cisco switches, routers, and solutions, your business can acquire an industry-leading network platform that adapts to current and future business needs and provides numerous benefits, including:
• Enhanced protection of information and assets
• Unconstrained, secure collaboration between employees, vendors, and customers
• Secure, easy access to applications, information, and resources within the organization, regardless of location
• Faster, easier deployment of applications and services, including voice and video, across the organization
• Improved ability to support network expansion due to growth, acquisitions, and partnerships
• A flexible, integrated network that is compatible with future technologies
• Improved ability to comply with government and industry regulations
• Lowered operating expenses through an integrated network that reduces complexity and training requirements, streamlines maintenance, and is scalable
• Enhanced corporate environmental stewardship through the reduction of power consumption, reduction of travel, and the responsible handling of e-waste
Next Steps: Make Sure Your Network Is Ready
With all the benefits that can be derived from newer and more collaborative networking technologies and solutions, today's businesses and organizations cannot afford to let the digital communications revolution pass them by. Enterprises do not adopt these technologies for two principal reasons: the difficulty in determining whether their infrastructure will support them, and the expense of bringing the network up-to-date. Cisco and its partners have tools and programs to address both of these concerns.
For even the most organized of IT managers, it is sometimes difficult to know if the entire network is capable of supporting today's rapidly evolving technologies and applications. To aid in determining the readiness of your network, Cisco partners have access to a broad variety of network assessment tools, which identify obsolete or inadequate network elements. You can perform these assessments quickly and at a low cost, and the results will help ensure that your network is capable of supporting today's and tomorrow's applications.
To address the financial concerns of technology migration, Cisco offers a variety of financing and incentive programs, including the Cisco Technology Migration Program. The Cisco TMP, available through Cisco sales teams or Cisco partners, allows you to trade in existing Cisco (and competitive) products in exchange for credit toward the purchase of new Cisco products. With this process, your organization can address your current networking needs with the assurance that you are getting the most from your existing investments through trade-in credits. (Note: The availability of TMP credits is subject to change.)
The Cisco TMP encompasses a broad variety of Cisco products and solutions, including:
The time to act is now. Join the digital communications revolution and reap the benefits. To determine the readiness of your network and explore the financial options to help you achieve readiness, contact your Cisco consultant or value-added reseller (VAR).
For more information about Cisco products and solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com. To locate a certified Cisco partner in your area, visit: http://tools.cisco.com/WWChannels/LOCATR/openBasicSearch.do.