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Creating the Future of Network Automation

by | Sep 23, 2022 | Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, DevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Scripting

The future of network automation will offer more security and adaptability
The future of network management will focus heavily on automation. While many organizations already employ network automation in some form or another, full implementation still lags far behind other areas of IT such as development and infrastructure (server) management.

The current network automation landscape

Currently, network automation focuses on individual tasks and suffers from several limitations that prevent networking teams from using it effectively.

Automating individual network administration workflows

Typical network automation solutions are designed to solve specific challenges by automating individual tasks or workflows. For example, network automation tools, such as Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), allow administrators to automatically deploy new device configurations over the network. Automatic device configurations both speed up the provisioning process and decrease the risk of human error.

ZTP automates one individual workflow to solve a specific problem, but it does not eliminate the need for human intervention. Someone still needs to create the configuration script, monitor for deployment errors, and, if necessary, manually troubleshoot failures and other issues. With any network administration workflow, the more a human gets involved in the process, the higher the chances of mistakes, which increases the risk of an outage. Currently, most network solutions don’t allow for enough automation to remove the human element entirely.

Lagging behind infrastructure and software automation

Thanks in part to the popularity of the DevOps methodology, automation has made great leaps forward in the realms of IT infrastructure management, software development, and software testing. For example, technologies like immutable infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) make it possible to automate almost every aspect of deploying, managing, scaling, monitoring, and troubleshooting servers and development environments. However, on the networking side of operations, automation is still lagging behind.

There are a few reasons for this delay. First, network architectures still tend to rely on legacy, hardware-based solutions which may not support software-defined networking, immutable principles, or automation paradigms. Second, there’s a network automation skills gap, which means network engineers and administrators don’t have the training or experience needed to work with software-defined networking code and other automation technologies. And third, many network solutions are still closed ecosystems which makes it difficult or impossible to integrate third-party automation and orchestration tools.

The future of network automation will be focused on reducing human intervention, extending virtualization to legacy devices, bridging the network automation skills gap, and eliminating vendor lock-in.

Looking into the future of network automation

In the future, network automation solutions will need to address the above challenges to keep up with the speed, performance, and reliability required for modern business operations. Creating the future of network automation will involve network hyperautomation, legacy modernization, low-code network automation, and vendor agnostic solutions.

Network hyperautomation

Hyperautomation is the practice of automating all (or most) network management workflows to eliminate human intervention. That means every workflow and process needed to achieve a certain outcome is automated, including error correction and other troubleshooting if a particular step fails. Hyperautomation is only achievable with an orchestration platform, which essentially automates your automation. A network orchestration platform gives you a centralized, big-picture overview of your entire network architecture and every automated workflow. This allows you to monitor your hyperautomation processes and, if necessary, manually intervene to fix problems or update workflows. Hyperautomation significantly reduces manual work, which decreases the chances of human error.

Legacy modernization

Obviously, the easiest way to modernize your infrastructure is to simply replace all your legacy hardware with virtualized, cloud-based solutions, but this is unrealistic for most organizations. It’s much less expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive to slowly upgrade your infrastructure over time, but that means you need a way to integrate automated processes with your legacy hardware. A legacy modernization solution (such as ZPE’s Nodegrid Serial Console R-Series) acts as a bridge between your old network hardware and your modern network automation platform.

These solutions directly connect to both your legacy hardware and your upgraded infrastructure, which allows you to manage both from a unified control panel. They also integrate with modern network orchestration platforms, so you can extend automation technology like software-defined networking and hyperautomation playbooks to your legacy devices. This will make it possible to increase your network automation efforts to stay ahead of evolving business requirements and DevOps initiatives.

Low-code network automation

Network automation typically involves software abstraction, which means turning configurations and workflows into software code. Unfortunately, many network administrators and engineers lack programming experience (beyond CLI scripts), which prevents organizations from moving forward with network automation initiatives.

Low-code network automation seeks to bridge the skills gap by reducing the need for manual coding. Low code solutions hide most of the underlying programming behind GUIs (graphical user interfaces) which administrators use to create and manipulate software-defined networking code and automation playbooks. At the same time, engineers who do have programming experience can still access that underlying code to supplement the capabilities of the GUI for more advanced workflows.

Low-code solutions represent a way into the future of network automation for organizations that currently suffer from a lack of resources and expertise. This future is made possible thanks to low code network automation pioneers like Gluware and Anuta ATOM.

Vendor-agnostic solutions

The future of network automation is vendor agnostic (also known as vendor neutral). Current network solutions with closed ecosystems provide some built-in automation capabilities but make it difficult to integrate third-party automation scripts, low code tools, and orchestration platforms. A vendor-agnostic network solution includes open hardware, Linux-based operating systems, and an orchestration platform that supports integrations with your choice of third-party tools and software. Vendor-agnostic solutions make it possible to automate and orchestrate your entire network from one centralized control panel without any gaps in coverage.

Vendor-agnostic platforms also give you the freedom to adopt new network automation solutions without needing to purchase additional proprietary hardware to host them. For instance, AIOps is an emerging technology which uses advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to detect, prevent, and even predict new cybersecurity threats. This network automation technology is better at identifying novel malware and advanced persistent threats than traditional intrusion prevention systems because AI is able to extrapolate and predict new risks based on past data, even if it hasn’t seen that particular attack method before. A vendor-agnostic network platform can host or integrate with third-party AIOps solutions and other cutting edge technology so your organization can stay ahead of the curve.

Creating the future of network automation with ZPE Systems

In the future, network automation will evolve into hyperautomation, legacy devices will be brought under the same management umbrella as modern solutions, low code automation will bridge the skills gap, and vendor-agnostic platforms will make it possible to automate and orchestrate an entire network architecture from one centralized control panel. Luckily, you can create this future now with the help of ZPE Systems.

ZPE’s Nodegrid is a holistic network orchestration platform that helps you overcome network automation challenges with forward-thinking solutions. ZPE Cloud unifies the management of your entire network architecture behind one pane of glass, so you have a complete overview of and control over all your automation. Nodegrid’s vendor-agnostic hardware and software support seamless integrations with your choice of third-party automation workflows, legacy devices, and low-code tools. With Nodegrid, you can accelerate your network automation efforts now and stay ahead of future automation trends.

Network automation learning center:

→   Automating Your Network Operations Does Not Have to Be Difficult
→   Network Automation Best Practices to Implement in 2022
→   The Importance of NetDevOps Automation for Modern Networks

Want to know more about how Nodegrid can create the future of network automation?

Contact ZPE Systems today!

Contact ZPE Systems

Data Center Management Best Practices for NetDevOps Transformation

by | Sep 16, 2022 | Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, DevOps, Increase Productivity, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Scripting

data center management best practices

The goal of NetDevOps is to take the collaborative, highly efficient processes that work so well in DevOps environments and apply them to networking workflows. The result is a fast, tightly integrated pipeline that delivers high-performance software and services. One of the keys to successful NetDevOps transformation is efficient management of data center and colocation infrastructure, using technologies like Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation, orchestration, and environmental monitoring. Let’s discuss how these data center management best practices contribute to NetDevOps.

Data center management best practices for NetDevOps transformation

These best practices will help you manage your data center infrastructure more efficiently, and they enable the application of DevOps principles and practices.

Infrastructure as Code/Network as Code

Often, one of the biggest bottlenecks in a software development pipeline is resource provisioning. Spinning up new VMs or nodes with manual configurations is time-consuming, leaving developers sitting around waiting for new environments before they can begin working. Infrastructure as Code, or IaC, aims to streamline the provisioning process by turning all infrastructure configurations into software code. IaC configurations are stored in a centralized repository and can be deployed over and over again, which saves time and ensures consistent configurations across systems—like development, test, and production environments.

Network as Code uses the same technology to manage network device configurations, such as routers and switches. Probably the most commonly used Network as Code technology is zero touch provisioning (ZTP), which deploys device configuration files over the network and executes them automatically. This enables efficient and remote deployments and updates of large-scale and hyperscale data center networks.

Turning data center configurations into software code makes it easier to integrate these workflows into a DevOps pipeline. It also ensures that networking and operations teams can provision new infrastructure at the velocity needed for fast-paced DevOps release cycles.  

Vendor-neutral automation

Automation is one of the foundational principles of NetDevOps because it speeds up processes while reducing the risk of human error. In the data center, automation tools and scripts are used for device configurations, network and power load balancing, system backups, vulnerability scanning, and more. The challenge is in ensuring all these automated components are compatible with your data center infrastructure, especially in multi-vendor, hybrid, and hyperscale environments.

That’s why vendor-neutrality is a major data center management best practice. Using vendor-neutral hardware will make it easier to deploy your choice of automation tools without modifying your scripts for each device. Even better, a vendor-neutral DCIM (data center infrastructure management) solution provides a unified interface from which to create and deploy automation tools while being able to dig its hooks into every component of your data center infrastructure.

Orchestration

Even in a vendor-neutral environment, keeping track of all your automation workflows can be challenging. Data center orchestration is sometimes defined as “automating your automation,” because it reduces the need for administrators to manually execute automated scripts and workflows. This makes automation even more efficient and reduces the workload for administrators, giving them more time to work on new technology initiatives that bring more business value.

Orchestration solutions can also react to situations in real-time, often much faster than human beings are capable of. For example, DCIM orchestration can monitor for usage spikes and perform automatic load balancing before a network administrator has even had time to read the alert message. Data center orchestration makes it easier to maintain optimal performance and respond to changing network conditions.

Environmental monitoring

The environmental conditions in a data center can have a huge impact on the performance and lifetime of your equipment. However, if your infrastructure is housed in remote colocation facilities, you may not have staff on-site to physically monitor things like temperature, humidity, and air quality. Data center environmental risks can cause system shutdowns, performance issues, and equipment failure, so you need a virtual presence to detect and mitigate these threats.

Environmental monitoring systems use sensors to collect data on temperature, humidity, power, airflow, and other important conditions in the rack. Administrators receive automatic alerts when conditions exceed optimal levels, so they can act quickly to remediate the problem. In addition, some systems include analytics and automated playbooks that make it even easier to optimize data center performance. Environmental monitoring ensures that administrators can keep data center infrastructure performing optimally to support NetDevOps pipelines and services.

How Nodegrid empowers data center management best practices

The Nodegrid DCIM orchestration solution delivers everything you need to follow data center management best practices and achieve NetDevOps transformation. Nodegrid’s vendor-neutral hardware and software can directly host your choice of Infrastructure as Code and Network as Code scripts and supports integrations with any third-party automation solution. ZPE Cloud provides centralized DCIM orchestration that unifies all your automation behind one pane of glass, with the ability to “say yes” to any vendor’s hardware. Plus, with Nodegrid’s cloud-managed environmental sensors, you can keep your infrastructure running at peak efficiency to power your NetDevOps transformation.

Learn more about data center management:

→   Top Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Trends of 2022
→   Data Center Modernization Strategy: How to Streamline Your Legacy Environment
→   Why Choose Nodegrid as Your Data Center Orchestration Tool

Want to find out more about how Nodegrid can help you with these data center management best practices?

Contact ZPE Systems today!

Contact Us

Solving Remote IT Infrastructure Management Challenges With Gen 3 Out-of-Band

by | Sep 1, 2022 | DevOps, Monitoring & Reporting, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Power Management, Remote Network Management, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Remote it infrastructure management

Enterprise IT management used to be much simpler. The entire network infrastructure would reside in the same location as the administrators who managed it, typically in closets and basement rooms in the HQ office building. Those days are long gone, however, and now most infrastructure is housed in off-site data centers, colocations, the cloud, or a combination of these. For most organizations, it isn’t feasible to maintain tech teams in each of these locations, which means administrators need to remotely manage their IT infrastructure.

Remote IT infrastructure management presents some interesting challenges. First, you need a way to remotely troubleshoot and recover from outages when the main WAN connection is unavailable. Second, you need to maintain optimal environmental conditions and monitor for issues that could damage data center equipment.

Solving remote IT infrastructure management challenges with Gen 3 out-of-band

Out-of-band (OOB) management uses a dedicated network to handle the orchestration and troubleshooting of remote infrastructure. This provides an alternative network path to this infrastructure in case the primary WAN link is down, and allows administrators to perform complex orchestration workflows without slowing down the production network.

Gen 3 OOB uses serial consoles to give administrators management access to many devices in the rack from one centralized portal. What makes an OOB serial console “Gen 3” is a combination of high-speed out-of-band access, complete vendor neutrality, and end-to-end automation and orchestration support. Let’s discuss how Gen 3 out-of-band can solve the three major remote IT infrastructure management challenges.

Remote troubleshooting and outage recovery

Downtime is expensive, which is why it’s important to recover from network outages as quickly as possible. However, many of the tools used to remotely manage IT infrastructure require a network connection. If a piece of networking hardware fails and takes down the LAN, or the ISP suffers a regional outage, administrators are left without access to troubleshoot and fix the problem. That leaves only two options: dispatching a truck roll or hiring on-site managed services. Option one is time-consuming and expensive, and option two is a security risk (and also expensive).

A Gen 3 OOB solution provides one or more alternative network paths to remote infrastructure. Often, it uses a cellular modem or secondary broadband network interface, which may also provide network failover capabilities. All network and infrastructure management occurs on this dedicated network, which provides two benefits:

  1. Deployment, maintenance, and orchestration activities won’t take up bandwidth on the production network; and
  2. Administrators can still access critical remote infrastructure during a production network outage.

Gen 3 OOB improves upon earlier technology which used slow dial-up interfaces, insecure hardware, and closed OS architectures. Gen 3 out-of-band includes security features like UEFI secure boot, geofencing, and an onboard firewall. The operating system is Linux-based to allow for easy integrations with any vendor solution, and vulnerabilities are patched quickly. This ensures that administrators have constant, high-speed, secure access to remote multi-vendor IT infrastructure.

Remote monitoring of environmental conditions

The environmental conditions in the data center have a major impact on the performance and functionality of critical infrastructure. Environmental threats like heat, moisture, power surges, smoke, and even physical tampering are major causes of data center downtime. When you don’t have actual eyes on the conditions in your rack, it can be difficult to detect environmental issues early on, when there’s still a chance to correct the issue and prevent downtime.

A Gen 3 OOB serial console includes GPIO interfaces for environmental monitoring sensors. These sensors are used to measure the temperature, relative humidity, air quality, and airflow in a rack, and in some cases can also detect smoke, proximity, and tampering. The monitoring sensors feed data back into a centralized environmental monitoring system which provides visualizations of present and historical conditions. It also sends automatic alerts to administrators when conditions require immediate attention. Plus, since this monitoring system is integrated with an OOB serial console, administrators can stay abreast of environmental conditions even when the production network goes down.

Remote IT infrastructure automation and orchestration

Automation allows IT teams to manage network infrastructures faster and more efficiently while reducing the risk of human error. However, one of the major hurdles to automation is vendor lock-in. Many infrastructure solutions don’t integrate with third-party automation tools and instead require you to use their own proprietary scripting languages and playbooks. Since many IT infrastructures are made up of a variety of vendor hardware and software solutions, administrators are forced to learn and manage multiple different automation platforms.

This difficulty only increases when those solutions are managed remotely. Administrators need to remotely jump from box to box and interface to interface just to execute basic automation workflows. It gets even more complicated when there are multiple remote sites to manage, as is the case in many large and globalized enterprises.

By definition, a Gen 3 out-of-band platform is vendor-neutral. That means it can dig its orchestration hooks into every hardware and software solution in your data center. It also supports integrations and direct hosting of third-party automation tools, so you can use the scripting languages and automation solutions of your choice. Finally, a Gen 3 solution centralizes the orchestration of all remote IT infrastructure automation workflows, so administrators can monitor and manage everything from behind one pane of glass.

Solving remote IT infrastructure management challenges with the Nodegrid Gen 3 out-of-band platform

The Nodegrid remote IT infrastructure management solution from ZPE Systems is the first Gen 3 out-of-band platform. Nodegrid delivers secure OOB, a robust environmental monitoring system, and end-to-end automation and orchestration in a single Gen 3 OOB serial console.

The Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP) provides OOB access and network failover via built-in 5G/4G LTE cellular and Wi-Fi modules, ensuring administrators have a dedicated high-speed connection to critical network infrastructure. Nodegrid hardware is protected by onboard security features like TPM 2.0, encrypted SSD, UEFI BIOS protection, secure boot, and geofencing, so you don’t have to worry about malicious actors compromising your management network. The open architecture, Linux-based Nodegrid OS is secured by frequent patches and supports third-party integrations or the direct hosting of third-party applications.

The Nodegrid environmental monitoring system includes sensors for dry contact, temperature, humidity, smoke, airflow, dust, and particulates so you have 24/7 visibility into the conditions in your rack. These sensors integrate seamlessly with the Nodegrid OS as well as the ZPE Cloud remote IT infrastructure management platform.

ZPE Cloud provides a centralized control panel from which to monitor and orchestrate your Gen 3 OOB network. ZPE Cloud’s vendor-neutral platform can “say yes” to any hardware, software, or automation solution you choose, so you can achieve end-to-end infrastructure automation without compromises.

Ready to learn more?

To learn more about how Nodegrid solves remote IT infrastructure management challenges through Gen 3 OOB, contact ZPE Systems

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What is a Serial Console’s Role in Modern Enterprise Networks?

by | Jul 27, 2022 | Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, DevOps, Increase Productivity, NetDevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Power Management, Remote Network Management, Scripting, Serial Consoles, Uncategorized

what is a serial console

Serial consoles have been used to manage business networks since the 80s, but things have changed significantly since then. What is a serial console’s role in modern enterprise networks? In this blog, we discuss the history and evolution of serial consoles as well as the exciting functionality provided by the latest generation.

What is a serial console?

A serial console—a console server, terminal server, serial console router, or serial console switch—is a networking device used to manage other devices. It connects to servers, switches, routers, and other equipment using the serial port (hence the name). Network administrators can then use the serial console to access all connected devices in the data center, server room, or network closet in which it’s installed.

Serial consoles allow admins to manage critical infrastructure without needing to log in to each separate device individually. A serial console also provides out-of-band (OOB) management, creating a completely separate network that’s dedicated to infrastructure management and troubleshooting. OOB management allows you to remotely troubleshoot, monitor, and administer your infrastructure, and more.

How serial consoles have evolved over time

A basic serial console—also called a Generation 1 serial console—provides consolidated remote access to critical infrastructure. It uses a secondary network connection (such as a dial-up modem or cellular SIM card) so admins can control and troubleshoot equipment without relying on the main production network. Using a Gen 1 serial console, admins can access each connected device’s CLI (command line interface).

Gen 1 serial consoles are relatively limited in control, security, and automation. For example, many Gen 1 serial consoles can only manage devices from the same vendor (or a small pool of supported manufacturers). A Gen 1 serial console also lacks in-depth security features like hardware encryption, and generally can’t integrate with third-party Zero Trust Security policies and controls. Plus, most Gen 1s completely lack automation capabilities, or limit you to basic CLI scripts for single tasks.

Gen 2 serial consoles

Frustration over these limitations led to significant advancements in the second generation of serial consoles, or Gen 2. With Gen 2 serial consoles, admins get more control, added security features, and expanded automation capabilities.

For instance, most Gen 2 consoles offer management functionality for third-party devices. These serial consoles also have some built-in security features like Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and frequently support advanced authentication methods like AD/LDAP, Kerberos, and RADIUS. Gen 2 serial consoles also allow for greater automation using Python scripts, APIs, and zero touch provisioning (ZTP).

While Gen 2 serial consoles offer more multi-vendor support than their extremely limited predecessors, they still fall short of true vendor neutrality. For instance, managing third-party and legacy devices often requires expensive adapters or complicated configuration tweaks. Many Gen 2 serial consoles also lack support for Zero Trust integrations such as SAML 2.0 (e.g., Okta, Ping, DUO), making it impossible to completely secure your out-of-band network.

Finally, while Gen 2 serial consoles introduce more automation capabilities, their closed architectures make it impossible to implement end-to-end NetDevOps automation. For example, you might only be able to use one specific scripting language or an approved set of playbooks. It’s also common for Gen 2 serial consoles to only support ZTP of connected devices from the same vendor, so you’re either limited in your automated provisioning capabilities or your choice of infrastructure solutions.

Gen 1 serial consoles provide remote, out-of-band management of multiple devices using CLI commands and scripts over a serial connection. Gen 2 evolved to incorporate more devices, more security features, and more automation capabilities. However, the serial console needed to develop even further to handle the needs of a modern enterprise network.

What is a serial console’s role in modern enterprise networks?

Today’s enterprise network is larger, more complex, and more distributed than Gen 1 serial console developers could have possibly imagined. Network administrators and engineers need to monitor, manage, and troubleshoot infrastructure devices from many different vendors in many different locations. Networks are also constantly threatened by cybercriminals using sophisticated hacking techniques and state-of-the-art malware. Plus, modern businesses must ensure near-constant availability and optimal network performance to stay competitive. Gen 1 and Gen 2 serial consoles simply can’t deliver the control, security, and resilience required by enterprise networks today.

The new Gen 3 serial console addresses older generations’ limitations through true vendor neutrality, multi-layered zero trust security, and end-to-end automation capabilities.

Total infrastructure control

Gen 3’s complete vendor neutrality makes it possible to extend your automation capabilities—including zero touch provisioning—to every physical and virtual asset in your environment, regardless of manufacturer. Gen 3 serial consoles also give network administrators a virtual presence in remote network locations (like data centers and branch offices) through which they can monitor environmental conditions in the rack, power-cycle and enter the BIOS menu of devices, manage power load distribution, and more.

This control is delivered via high-speed OOB (such as a 5G/4G cellular SIM card), giving you 24/7 remote access to critical enterprise infrastructure, even during an ISP outage. Plus, Gen 3 serial consoles use centralized cloud management, which means engineers can manage and troubleshoot remote infrastructure from anywhere, anytime.

A Gen 3 serial console is based on an open architecture, x86 OS, that supports integrations with your choice of infrastructure solutions, cloud services, and automation toolkits. It also includes flexible port configurations and legacy pinouts to control a variety of devices, such as PDUs, IPMI devices, and environmental monitoring sensors.

Comprehensive security

On a hardware level, Gen 3 serial consoles use features like encrypted disks, UEFI secure boot, and TPM 2.0 to ensure unauthorized users can’t access management functionality. Additionally, the OS is frequently updated and patched against new security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. The Gen 3 serial console also automatically checks the integrity of all newly integrated hardware and software to ensure there are no backdoor vulnerabilities.

A Gen 3 serial console’s vendor-neutral platform supports easy integrations with a variety of zero trust security controls. For instance, you can manage user access to a Gen 3 serial console through third-party Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, allowing you to follow zero trust best practices like 2FA, SSO, and dynamic trust verification. A Gen 3 serial console can also integrate with on-premises and cloud-based network security solutions such as next-generation firewalls (NGFW), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Security Service Edge (SSE).

A Gen 3 console includes robust onboard security features, which reduces the risk of an attacker using a stolen serial console to access your management network (and ultimately, your production systems and data). Its open architecture also enables integration with zero trust security controls and providers.

End-to-end automation

The open architecture of a Gen 3 serial console makes it possible to integrate with your choice of infrastructure automation and orchestration tools, or directly host VMs and Docker containers so you can run your own tools. With a Gen 3 serial console, you can use solutions like Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or Kubernetes to automate deployments. You can also use any API you want to automate any workload you need to, no matter how complex.

Gen 3’s advanced automation capabilities enable full pipeline automation so you can achieve NetDevOps transformation. Gen 3 serial consoles also facilitate immutable infrastructure, allowing faster and more agile deployments, updates, and replacements of critical network resources.

With a Gen 3 serial console, you can create a fully-automated network environment. This allows engineers to work more efficiently and reduces the risk of human error causing an outage or security breach.

Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP)

A Gen 3 serial console, like the Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP), gives you complete remote control over every component of your network infrastructure, regardless of location or manufacturer. Nodegrid also secures your OOB management network using zero trust security best practices and comprehensive onboard features. Finally, the Gen 3 NSCP allows you to automate whatever tools you want to use, so you can efficiently manage a complex enterprise network without sacrificing speed, security, or control.

 

Learn more about Gen 3 serial consoles:

→   Comparing the Best Console Servers for Data Centers in 2022
→   What Makes a Gen 3 Serial Console?
→   Why You Need a Next-Gen OOB Console Server

What is a serial console’s role in modern enterprise networks?

Schedule a demo of the Gen 3 Nodegrid Serial Console Plus to see for yourself!

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Part 2: Immutable Infrastructure: Best Practices for Network Professionals

by | Jun 16, 2022 | Actionable Data, DevOps, Increase Productivity, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Scripting, SD-WAN, Uncategorized

immutable infrastructure best practices
Immutable infrastructure involves servers, network appliances, and other devices which are never updated or changed. In part 1 of our blog series, we discussed the most inherent challenges with the immutable infrastructure paradigm. This post will cover immutable infrastructure best practices that you should follow to overcome these challenges and fully embrace immutable principles in your enterprise.

Immutable infrastructure best practices for network professionals

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as code, or IaC, uses software abstraction to separate infrastructure configurations from the underlying hardware, allowing you to write configurations as repeatable scripts that you can deploy to many different devices. It also facilitates automation and orchestration through tools like RedHat Ansible, which stores and automatically executes configuration scripts according to predefined playbooks.

IaC is used traditionally for physical and virtual server configurations, but you can also use it to create and maintain virtualized network device configurations. This is sometimes called network infrastructure as code or software-defined networking (SDN). SDN goes beyond just abstracting configurations from the underlying networking hardware. It virtualizes your entire network, creating an overlay for managing and optimizing network routing, load balancing, segmentation, and more.

IaC is an immutable infrastructure best practice because it allows you to create and deploy configurations quickly and at scale. It enables truly immutable infrastructure that you can copy, delete, and replace at will. Without IaC, you must provision each new and updated instance manually. Even with a large team of engineers, updates could take a long time, and intermediate periods during which different versions of the same server or network configuration were active simultaneously will appear. Plus, manual configurations are error-prone, and mistakes could create vulnerabilities in your network.

Infrastructure as code and network infrastructure as code allow you to deploy virtual configurations programmatically and automatically. For immutable infrastructure, IaC is frequently used to deploy and configure images for containers and other virtualized environments.

Golden images

A golden image is a standardized template for physical or virtualized infrastructure. You start with a base image with only the software and settings required universally across all instances of that device. Then, you install any agents or services needed for monitoring, threat detection, analysis, etc. Finally, you harden the image with security policies and tools, and patch any known security vulnerabilities. Once the golden image is complete, you freeze it so no further changes can be made.

Best practices for creating, securing, and updating golden images for immutable infrastructure include:

  • Incorporate as many dependencies and settings as possible in your golden image to reduce the amount of configuration that needs to happen at deployment. This will ensure that the golden image you’ve tested and validated is as close as possible to the final production configuration. It will also make it faster and easier to scale.
  • Continuously scan and analyze golden images for new security vulnerabilities. That way, you can create and deploy patched versions as soon as possible, hopefully before a malicious actor has time to exploit those vulnerabilities.
  • Fully decommission old images once they’ve been replaced with newer, more secure versions. This will ensure a consistent and secure environment, and decrease the risk of accidentally spinning up new instances with old images.
  • Store golden images in multiple locations on a micro-segmented network. Use zero trust security to create granular policies and build  customized micro-perimeters around your golden images. This will protect your images from exfiltration or unauthorized modifications. It will also ensure access to golden images for recovery purposes even if you must isolate particular micro-segments during a breach.

Golden images for virtualized servers and network devices can be deployed, modified, and updated through IaC orchestration platforms—Like AWS, Azure, etc. This further streamlines the provisioning of immutable infrastructure, ensures consistent configurations across instances, and facilitates fast and easy scaling.

Stateful and persistent data

You should strive to make infrastructure and data as ephemeral as possible. Still, there are cases where you’ll need data to persist as you’re creating, deleting, and copying immutable resources. For stateful and persistent data, you should use mountable storage attachable to new instances when old ones are terminated.

Make sure you separate the ephemeral data from stateful/persistent data, so you only keep what you absolutely need to. This will help you reduce storage costs and simplify your overall operations. In addition, you should ship log files off immutable instances and send them to a centralized monitoring server as frequently as possible to ensure they persist.

Implementing immutable infrastructure best practices in your enterprise

Many of these immutable infrastructure best practices rely on modern, software-defined technology stacks, making it challenging to apply them to legacy infrastructure. You also need clear, centralized orchestration to see and control every piece of your immutable infrastructure, even across highly distributed networks with remote branch and edge locations. Finally, all of your immutable infrastructure solutions must work together seamlessly regardless of vendor or ecosystem.

ZPE Systems can solve all these challenges with the Nodegrid network orchestration solution. Nodegrid supports network functions virtualization (NFV), which turns your physical networking appliances into virtualized solutions you can configure and manage through IaC and SDN. Nodegrid’s vendor-neutral serial console servers also support legacy pinouts, so you can bring your legacy physical infrastructure under your immutable orchestration umbrella.

The ZPE Cloud network orchestration platform can also control remote data center, branch, and edge infrastructure. You can host your choice of SD-WAN (software-defined wide area networking) solution on your Nodegrid devices or use ZPE Cloud’s SD-WAN app. This technology allows you to extend the reach of your virtualized network orchestration to your WAN architecture. To dig even deeper, you can use the SD-Branch app to control branch and edge LANs as well.

The ZPE Cloud platform and all Nodegrid devices are truly vendor-neutral, allowing integrations with leading third-party IaC, SDN, and security providers. Nodegrid empowers you to create a tightly-integrated, seamless immutable infrastructure solution for total network control.

See how Nodegrid can help you implement immutable infrastructure best practices in your enterprise.

Call 1-844-4ZPE-SYS to view a free demo.

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Part 1: Immutable Infrastructure: Challenges Your Company Needs to Be Aware of

by | Jun 13, 2022 | DevOps, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Network Edge Orchestration, SD-WAN, Uncategorized

shutterstock_1299826528

Immutable infrastructure refers to the critical network resources and systems that make up your infrastructure and that are never updated, changed, or fixed in any way—they stay exactly the same. If something needs to be modified, the entire system or device is replaced by a new one. While this approach has many advantages for organizations, there are still some immutable infrastructure challenges you’ll need to overcome.

Mutable vs immutable infrastructure

Traditional infrastructure deployments are mutable and continuously change in place. Sysadmins and network engineers will constantly deploy patches, modify configurations, and install new software on systems and devices while they’re actively in use. The benefit of this approach is that you don’t need to create entirely new server instances or network deployments every time you want to change something.

However, mutable infrastructure does create some risk. For example, what if you deploy a patch that breaks a core function? What if some new code introduces a security vulnerability to the system? How about if an in-place upgrade fails halfway through and you end up with an unplanned version of the configuration? With mutable infrastructure, you’re stuck troubleshooting the issues and attempting to deploy fixes on systems and devices actively in use.

On the other hand, immutable infrastructure is frequently copied, deleted, and recreated without making changes to the systems currently in use. Configurations are abstracted as software code and managed from a centralized location that’s physically and logically separate from the target infrastructure. This code can be copied and deployed to many different targets as frequently as necessary. The environments themselves are virtualized (and often containerized) which creates an additional abstraction layer from the underlying hardware. This also makes it possible to copy, delete, and recreate instances as needed.

When an infrastructure as code (IaC) or software-defined networking (SDN) configuration needs to be updated, a new version of the code is written, deployed to a new instance, and tested to ensure functionality and security. Then, traffic is redirected to the new instance and the the old one is simply deleted. If a virtualized or containerized environment fails, or is compromised by a hacker, you can delete it and replace it with an exact copy with minimum hassle.

Immutable infrastructure is becoming popular among DevOps and NetDevOps organizations that use IaC and SDN to integrate resource provisioning directly into the software development pipeline. While this approach has clear advantages—including security improvement, IT complexity and failure decrement, and easier troubleshooting than mutable infrastructure—there are also some immutable infrastructure challenges.

Immutable infrastructure challenges

The immutable infrastructure paradigm was initially conceptualized for hyperscale and enterprise data center deployments. It relies on software-defined technology stacks and orchestration solutions that automate deployment and provisioning. The challenge comes when you need to venture outside of this ideal deployment, as is the case for many organizations.

Modern enterprise networks are shifting away from massive, centralized data centers because modern enterprises are themselves less centralized than they used to be. As operations become more globalized and remote, distributed workforces evolve the norm, and enterprises deploy infrastructure closer to the network edge. Edge network infrastructure is deployed to small local data centers, branch offices, remote warehouses, and other distributed locations. Often, these smaller deployments rely on hardware-based appliances, servers, and legacy equipment.

This creates some significant challenges when you try to shift to immutable infrastructure, including:

  1. Extending the software-defined network automation and orchestration to remote locations outside your enterprise network.
  2. Bringing the orchestrator’s hooks into all of your disparate legacy hardware solutions.
  3. Finding a way to apply immutable principles to this mutable hardware-based infrastructure.

Solving immutable infrastructure challenges

Immutable infrastructure requires centralized orchestration of software-defined technology, so you need to apply SDN to WAN architecture to bring immutable to the edge. This is called SD-WAN, or software-defined wide area network. SD-WAN decouples the management of your WAN from the underlying hardware, so you can use orchestration to control distributed WAN architecture.

However, SD-WAN only gets you to the perimeter of your edge networks. To use immutable infrastructure effectively, you also need to extend the orchestrator’s reach into the branch and edge LANs. You can achieve this through SD-Branch technology, which gives you software-defined control over the internal networking infrastructure of remote architectures.

The second goal is to ensure that your orchestration solution can see and control every piece of your edge architecture, even legacy systems not designed with automation in mind. The SD-WAN/SD-Branch gateways and console servers you install at the edge need to support legacy pinouts and integrate with third-party hardware and software. If the edge connectivity solution can’t say yes to every component of your distributed network infrastructure, you’ll have gaps in the software-defined orchestration coverage.

The third task is to turn mutable hardware into immutable infrastructure, which you can accomplish through virtualization. In the same way that a single physical server can be turned into many different virtual machines, you can use network functions virtualization (NFV) to turn physical networking appliances into virtualized solutions. NFV creates an abstraction layer that separates the underlying hardware’s routing, switching, load-balancing, and other management functions. This allows your orchestrator to manage these functions automatically and create, copy, delete, and recreate network configurations at will without worrying about the mutable hardware.

The tricky thing about solving each of these challenges is that you need a truly vendor-neutral solution to make it all work. For example, if you have different branch gateways in different locations, you need to ensure that the SD-WAN/SD-Branch platform will integrate with all of them. Otherwise, you’ll need to manage multiple software-defined technology stacks, or you’ll lose the ability to apply immutable principles consistently across your entire distributed network.

The network functions virtualization platform also needs to support all of your disparate vendor hardware and legacy architecture; otherwise, you won’t be able to turn all mutable infrastructure into virtualized, immutable solutions. Plus, the orchestrator needs to integrate with your NFV platform as well as all edge hardware and software, to have full coverage.

Many immutable infrastructure solutions fall short of true vendor-neutrality. That means, to use them effectively, you have to upgrade your edge infrastructure hardware and software to compatible versions. This is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor and one that creates a massive roadblock for globally distributed enterprises hoping to adopt immutable principles.

Nodegrid brings immutable infrastructure to edge networks

ZPE Systems can help you bring immutable infrastructure to your edge networks with the vendor-neutral Nodegrid platform. Nodegrid’s powerful, all-in-one branch gateways give you the best of both worlds: you can use our powerful SD-WAN and SD-Branch technology or directly host your choice of third-party software-defined networking solutions. The modular design of the Nodegrid Net Services Router (NSR) also gives you added capabilities like edge compute, terminal server, NetDevOps, and more.

The vendor-neutral ZPE Cloud orchestration platform can say yes to every component of your distributed network architecture, including legacy hardware appliances and systems. ZPE Cloud gives you complete control over your mutable hardware, making it possible to apply software-defined orchestration to even the smallest branch deployments.

Plus, all Nodegrid devices run on the vendor-neutral, Linux-based Nodegrid OS with support for NFV. You can use Nodegrid OS to virtualize every piece of the edge networking stack, turning mutable branch hardware into immutable, automated solutions.

Learn how Nodegrid can solve your immutable infrastructure problems.

Call 1-844-4ZPE-SYS to see a demo.

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