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Distributed Edge Computing Use Cases

by | Mar 8, 2024 | Application Hosting, Edge Computing, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, Simplify Branch Infrastructure

An industrial worker selecting an illustration of distributed edge computing concepts surrounding the word edge computing
Across every industry, networks are decentralizing as organizations expand with remote business sites, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, and mobile technologies. Distributed edge computing involves moving data processing systems and applications out of the centralized cloud or data center and distributing them around the network’s edges, where much of the data is generated. As defined by The Open Glossary of Edge Computing, edge native computing integrates with centralized cloud computing resources, local workloads, remote management, and orchestration while having the ability to operate independently.

Edge computing supports secure, real-time data analysis by reducing off-site data transmission. Edge native computing also enables the transition to digital transformation 2.0 by allowing companies to do something with their edge data in real-time, not just collect it. This post discusses six different use cases that could benefit from distributed edge computing, including healthcare, finance, energy, manufacturing, utilities/public services, and AI & machine learning.

Jump to the executive summary.

Distributed edge computing use cases

Use cases for distributed edge computing include:

Healthcare

  • Mitigate security, privacy, and compliance concerns with local data processing, AI, and Zero Touch Provisioned Virtual Network Functions

  • Improve patient health outcomes with real-time alerts that don’t require Internet access

  • Enable emergency mobile medical intervention while reducing mistakes

Finance

  • Support distributed financial networks while reducing security and regulatory risks by managing scope through isolation and built-in change management.

  • Get fast, localized business insights to improve revenue and customer service

  • Deploy AI-powered surveillance and security solutions without network bottlenecks

Energy

  • Enable real-time data processing and ensure network access for air-gapped and isolated environments with IT and OT operations. without network access

  • Improve efficiency with predictive maintenance recommendations and other insights

  • Proactively identify and remediate safety, quality, and compliance issues

Manufacturing

  • Get real-time, data-driven insights to improve manufacturing efficiency and product quality

  • Reduce the risk of confidential production data falling into the wrong hands during transit

  • Ensure continuous communications and operations during network outages and other adverse events

Utilities/Public Services

  • Use IoT technology to deliver better services, improve public safety, and keep communities connected

  • Reduce the fleet management challenges involved in difficult deployment environments

  • Provide IT with reliable remote access to install critical security patches and maintain devices

  • Aid in Disaster Recovery and resilience

AI & Machine Learning

  • Get enhanced data analytics capabilities for any distributed edge computing use case

  • Improve AI/ML efficiency by eliminating network bottlenecks and reducing security risks

  • Use edge devices with a built-in networking stack to improve the agility, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of edge AI/ML
Migration from On Premises to Edge Computing

Image: Concrete use case that can work across all industries, showing the migration from on-prem computing to microservices at the edge, along with the associated level of security risk.

Healthcare

The healthcare industry quickly and enthusiastically adopted IoT technology for medical equipment like insulin pumps, pacemakers, and imaging devices to improve patient health monitoring and outcomes. These sensors generate massive quantities of data that healthcare organizations must transmit to applications in central data centers or the cloud for processing. This data can’t be transferred over the open Internet for security and compliance reasons, so it’s usually funneled through a central firewall via MPLS (for branches, clinics, and other physical sites), overlay networks, or SD-WAN (for wearable sensors and mobile EMS devices). The firewall becomes a bottleneck that increases latency and prevents real-time data processing, introducing potentially lethal delays in health monitoring and response.

Distributed edge computing for healthcare involves installing medical data processing applications closer to the sensors and devices generating most of the data. Edge computing occurs on the same local network or even the same onboard chip (using system-on-chip or SoC technology), which reduces security risks and latency. For example, software running on an implanted heart-rate monitor can analyze patient data in real time without a network connection. If it detects any concerning activity that falls outside of an established baseline, it uses multiple cellular and ATT FirstNet connections to send alerts to the cardiologist without exposing any private patient data. Even if the application can’t establish a network connection at all, the device itself can alert the patient that there’s a problem so they can take immediate action.

Another healthcare use case is mobile EMS units processing patient health data en route to the hospital using edge compute resources built into cellular edge routers. Edge native applications can help medics prevent allergic reactions and harmful medication interactions when administering treatment.

Finance

Finance industry networks are typically highly decentralized, using branches, web and mobile applications, and self-service ATMs to make their services accessible to customers around the world. Banks and other institutions know that edge data has value beyond the financial transactions being conducted, so they use data analytics software (often powered by AI & machine learning) to gain insights into how to improve their services and generate more revenue. However, there are enormous security, regulatory, and reputational risks involved in transmitting sensitive financial data, making it challenging to leverage cloud- or data center-based analytics software.

Distributed edge computing moves financial data processing applications to branches and 26remote PoPs (points of presence) to help mitigate the risks of transmitting data off-site. For example, financial institutions can install all-in-one branch gateway services routers with built-in edge compute functionality in networking closets, drive-up kiosks, or even inside an ATM’s housing. Running data analytics software from this device enables real-time data processing for business insights, surveillance, customer service improvements, and more. These routers should also include out-of-band (OOB) management technology to support infrastructure isolation and simplify compliance with PCI DSS 4.0 and other regulations.

Energy

Edge data in the oil and gas industry comes from IoT sensors and automated equipment deployed in remote sites, drilling rigs, and offshore platforms all over the world. Analyzing that data is crucial for productivity, safety, and compliance, but it’s often difficult to maintain a fast and reliable network connection with applications in data centers or the cloud.

Distributed edge computing allows oil and gas companies to effectively harness their data in challenging deployment environments, such as the middle of the ocean. For example, companies can tuck compact, cellular-enabled edge computing devices into maintenance closets or other small compartments to deploy software that analyzes equipment monitoring data, well logs, and borehole logs. This software can provide predictive maintenance recommendations, alert technicians to potential quality or safety issues, and deliver productivity forecasts and insights without requiring an Internet connection.

Manufacturing

Companies across nearly every industry are increasingly automating their manufacturing to improve productivity, lower costs, and reduce errors. To further reduce human involvement, they use software to monitor equipment health, track production costs, schedule preventative maintenance, and perform quality assurance (QA) tasks. This software, which typically runs from the cloud or a centralized data center, relies on data generated by automated operational technology (OT) and other manufacturing machinery. As in the above use cases, transmitting OT back and forth creates latency and security issues. There are additional risks associated with manufacturing operations located overseas, where political instability, disasters, and other external forces could interrupt communications.

Distributed edge computing enables real-time, data-driven insights to improve manufacturing efficiency and elevate product quality. Plus, some edge computing solutions, like the Nodegrid integrated branch services router, provide out-of-band (OOB) management access to remote equipment. OOB management creates a dedicated management network that’s completely isolated from the production network, ensuring continuous remote access to operational technology, monitoring systems, and edge native applications during Internet outages and other adverse events.

Utilities / public services

Many forward-thinking cities are deploying Internet of Things (IoT) devices to improve their utilities and public services and better connect their communities. These “smart cities” collect data from Internet-connected thermostats, parking meters, traffic lights, security cameras, and other devices deployed outdoors, in public facilities, and in citizens’ homes. However, local governments often find it challenging to keep up with fleet management, ensuring all these devices are connected, patched, and up-to-date to prevent breaches and failures.

Distributed edge computing reduces the networking and bandwidth requirements for IoT-enabled utilities, public services, and smart cities. Edge native applications can analyze data on the same sensor or device that generates it, reporting back to a centralized cloud or data center as needed to provide alerts, reports, and visualizations. All-in-one edge networking solutions combine connectivity with compute capabilities and are small enough to fit in utility cabinets, under public benches, or on top of street lights. They provide remote IT teams with easy access to monitor devices, deploy updates, and troubleshoot issues over a reliable, cellular OOB connection. An edge native networking solution should also enable automatic, zero-touch operations to streamline digital fleet management at scale.

AI & machine learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications ingest data to train, operate, and make decisions. Much of that data originates at the network’s edges – in fact, there are AI & ML applications for every edge use case and industry listed above. Transmitting vast quantities of data to the cloud or a data center introduces network bottlenecks, latency, and security risks that can prevent organizations from getting the full value out of their AI investment.

Because artificial intelligence is very resource-hungry, edge native computing for AI/ML sometimes looks a little different than in other use cases. A typical edge computing deployment for AI & ML involves racks of high-performance machine learning processing units deployed in edge data centers on the same site as (or very nearby) the devices generating data. This approach works well for large machine-learning workloads occurring in a limited number of deployment sites. A more flexible approach involves using smaller graphics processing units (GPUs) or multi-purpose edge devices to handle individual AI/ML workloads in smaller and more distributed edge deployment sites. These “thin” or “nano” deployments are agile and cost-effective, scaling easily as organizations grow in size and geographic distribution.

Executive summary

  • Distributed edge computing for healthcare improves patient health outcomes and data privacy with SoC applications on wearable medical devices and cellular edge routers in mobile EMS units.
  • Distributed edge computing for the finance industry provides insights into how to improve services and revenue while helping to mitigate security and regulatory risks with on-site data processing and infrastructure isolation.
  • Distributed edge computing helps the energy sector effectively harness critical data from sensors and equipment in challenging deployment environments to improve quality, safety, and productivity.
  • Distributed edge computing for manufacturing helps companies process data from automated machinery and operational technology to improve manufacturing efficiency and elevate product quality.
  • Distributed edge computing for utilities/public services reduces the networking and fleet management challenges for IoT-enabled utilities, public services, and smart cities with all-in-one edge networking solutions, OOB, and zero-touch operations.
  • Distributed edge computing for AI & machine learning uses multi-purpose edge devices to handle individual workloads, improving the agility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of edge AI/ML.

Distributed edge computing with Nodegrid

Nodegrid is a line of all-in-one edge networking solutions from ZPE Systems. Nodegrid’s vendor-neutral, integrated branch services routers combine edge gateway networking functionality with Gen 3 out-of-band management and edge computing capabilities. The Nodegrid platform streamlines distributed edge computing for any use case with consolidated hardware and software that reduce deployment costs and management headaches while improving efficiency.

See Nodegrid’s edge solutions in action

Nodegrid delivers streamlined, cost-effective solutions for distributed edge computing in healthcare, EMS, financial services, local governments, and more. To see how Nodegrid works for your edge computing use case, request a free demo.

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DORA Act: 5 Takeaways For The Financial Sector

by | Mar 7, 2024 | Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, Data Logging, Improve Network Security, Increase Productivity, Micro-segmentation, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, Modernize Legacy Environments, Monitoring & Reporting, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, User Management, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

Thumbnail – DORA Act 5 Takeaways for the Financial Sector

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a regulatory initiative within the European Union that aims to enhance the operational resilience of the financial sector. Its main goal is to prevent and mitigate cyber threats and operational disruptions. The DORA Act outlines regulatory requirements for the security of network and information systems “whereby all firms need to make sure they can withstand, respond to and recover from all types of ICT-related disruptions and threats” (DORA Act website).

Who and What Are Covered Under the DORA Act?

The DORA Act is a regulation that covers all financial entities within the European Union (EU). It recognizes the critical role of information and communication technology (ICT) systems in financial services. DORA applies to financial services including payments, securities, credit rating, algorithmic trading, lending, insurance, and back-office operations. It establishes a framework for ICT risk management through technical standards, which are being released in two phases, the first of which was published on January 17, 2024. The DORA Act will go into effect in its entirety on January 17, 2025.

With cyberattacks constantly in the news cycle, it’s no surprise that governing bodies are putting forth standards for operational resilience. But without combing through this lengthy piece of legislation, what should IT teams start thinking about from a practical standpoint? Here are 5 takeaways on what the DORA Act means for the financial sector.

DORA Act: 5 Takeaways for the Financial Sector

1. Shore-up your cybersecurity measures

The DORA Act emphasizes strengthening cybersecurity measures within the financial sector. It requires financial institutions, such as banks, stock exchanges, and financial infrastructure providers, to implement robust cybersecurity controls and protocols. These include adopting advanced authentication mechanisms, encryption standards, and network segmentation to protect sensitive financial data and critical infrastructure from cyber threats. Part of this will also require organizations to apply system patches and updates in a timely manner, which means automated patching will become necessary to every organization’s security posture.

2. Implement resilience systems

Operational resilience is a key focus area of the DORA Act, aiming to ensure the continuity of essential financial services in the face of cyber threats, natural disasters, and other operational disruptions. Financial institutions are required to develop comprehensive business continuity plans, establish redundant systems and backup facilities, and conduct regular stress tests to assess their ability to withstand and recover from various scenarios. Implementing a resilience system helps with this, as it provides all the infrastructure, tools, and services necessary to continue operating during major incidents.

3. Conduct regular scans for vulnerabilities

The DORA Act mandates financial institutions to implement robust risk management practices to identify, assess, and mitigate cyber risks and operational vulnerabilities. This includes conducting regular assessments, vulnerability scans, and penetration tests, and developing incident response procedures to quickly address threats. This is all part of taking a proactive approach to identify and mitigate cyber incidents, and reduce the impact that adverse events have on financial stability and consumer confidence.

4. Collaborate and share information with industry peers

The DORA Act encourages financial institutions to share cybersecurity threat intelligence, incident data, and best practices with industry peers, regulators, and law enforcement agencies. The ability to monitor systems and collect data will be crucial to this approach, and will require systems that can rapidly (and securely) deploy apps/services during ongoing incidents. This will help financial institutions to better understand emerging threats, coordinate responses to cyber incidents, and strengthen collective defenses against threats and operational disruptions.

5. Segment physical and logical systems to pass regular audits

Through the DORA Act, regulators are empowered to conduct regular assessments, audits, and inspections of systems. This will ensure that financial institutions are implementing adequate controls and safeguards to protect against cyber threats and operational disruptions. A crucial part to this will involve physical and logical separation of systems, such as through Isolated Management Infrastructure, as well as implementing zero trust architecture across the organization. These will help bolster resilience by eliminating control dependencies between management and production networks, which will also help to streamline audits.

Get the blueprint to help you comply with the DORA Act

DORA’s requirements are meant to help IT teams better protect sensitive data and the integrity of financial systems as a whole. But without a proper network management infrastructure, their production networks are too sensitive to errors and vulnerable to attacks. ZPE has created the blueprint that covers these 5 crucial takeaways outlined in the DORA Act. The architecture outlined in this blueprint has been trusted by Big Tech for more than a decade, as it allows them to deploy modern cybersecurity measures, physically and logically separated systems, and rapid recovery processes. Download the blueprint now.

Download blueprint

Zero Trust Edge Solutions: Continuing the Zero Trust Journey

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Application Hosting, Increase Productivity, Monitoring & Reporting, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Remote Network Management, Serial Consoles, Simplify Branch Infrastructure, Vendor Neutral Platform, Virtualization, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

A glowing shield with a 0 on it overlays a glowing map of the world to represent zero trust at the edge.

The zero trust security methodology follows the principle of “never trust, always verify,” which assumes that any account or device could be compromised and should be forced to continuously establish trustworthiness. This sounds like an extreme approach, but with the frequency of high-profile data breaches and ransomware attacks steadily increasing, security teams must pivot their approach away from prevention and toward damage mitigation and recovery. Zero trust security limits the lateral movement of compromised accounts on the network by establishing micro-perimeters around network resources that continually assess an account’s behavior for suspicious activity.

Organizations also must extend zero trust security policies and controls to remote business sites at their network’s edges, such as branches, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, and home offices. Zero trust edge solutions are software platforms that provide networking, access, and security capabilities designed specifically for the edge. This guide explains what zero trust edge solutions do and the challenges involved in using them before discussing how to build a unified ZTE platform.

Table of contents

What are zero trust edge solutions?

A zero trust edge solution combines edge-centric security functionality with remote access and networking capabilities. ZTE’s core feature is zero trust network access (ZTNA), which securely connects remote users to enterprise applications and resources, similar to a VPN. ZTNA is more secure than VPNs because it only allows users to authenticate to one resource at a time and prevents them from seeing or accessing anything else until they re-establish their identity and credentials. ZTE’s other features and capabilities vary depending on the vendor and deployment type. ZTE solutions come in three different forms:

  • As a service: Companies can purchase ZTE functionality as a cloud-based, vendor-managed service. Remote users connect to regional points of presence (POPs) to reach the ZTE stack in the cloud before being routed to enterprise resources. This deployment style is easier to deploy for organizations with lots of users in the field but few (if any) physical edge locations to host security or networking solutions.
    .
  • With SD-WAN: Some ZTE providers combine zero-trust features with software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) capabilities. SD-WAN creates a virtual network overlay that’s decoupled from the underlying WAN infrastructure, enabling centralized control and automation. Packaging ZTE and SD-WAN together helps organizations consolidate their tech stack at physical edge sites like branches, warehouses, and manufacturing plants while still offering ZTNA to work-from-home and field employees.
    .
  • Build your own: Since there are very few mature ZTE providers on the market, and it can be difficult to find pre-made solutions with all the features needed for complex, distributed edge networks, many teams opt to build their own platform by combining tools from multiple vendors. Typically, these organizations have physical branches with existing WAN infrastructure that they use as regional POPs to host ZTNA and other security solutions.

Why build your own ZTE solution?

If pre-made solutions exist, why would companies go through the hassle of creating their own zero trust edge platform? Presently, there aren’t any “complete” ZTE solutions that offer full, zero-trust protection for branches and other physical edge sites.

For example, many ZTE platforms don’t protect management ports on the control plane, leaving critical edge infrastructure like servers, switches, and power distribution units (PDUs) exposed to cybercriminals. Additionally, branch ZTE solutions rely upon production network infrastructure, so if there’s an outage or ransomware attack, remote management teams are completely cut off from troubleshooting and recovery. These solutions also lack helpful edge networking features like fleet management and automation, and their closed ecosystems limit the ability to extend their capabilities.

Building your own zero trust edge platform allows you to combine all the security, networking, and management functionality you need to get full security coverage and streamline branch operations. The key to creating a robust and efficient ZTE solution is starting with a vendor-neutral platform that can unify the entire security architecture.

How Nodegrid simplifies ZTE

Nodegrid edge networking solutions from ZPE Systems provide the perfect vendor-neutral platform for integrated zero trust edge deployments. All-in-one edge gateway routers deliver a full stack of branch networking capabilities, including out-of-band (OOB) management. OOB creates a dedicated control plane on an isolated network so remote teams have continuous access to manage, troubleshoot, and repair edge infrastructure.

Nodegrid protects the management interfaces on the OOB network with robust, zero trust security processes and controls. For example, the encryption keys for each Nodegrid device are destroyed after provisioning so that only the public key is accessible when needed for authentication to our cloud. Nodegrid devices also use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) as a hardware security module to prevent cybercriminals from tampering with the configuration or storage.

Our platform runs on the Linux-based, x86 Nodegrid OS, which supports VMs and Docker containers for third-party applications. That means you can deploy ZTNA, SD-WAN, and other zero trust edge solutions without purchasing or managing additional hardware at each branch. Nodegrid’s OOB and failover functionality ensure those security and access solutions remain operational during ISP outages, ransomware attacks, and other disruptions. Teams can also run their favorite tools for automation, troubleshooting, and recovery on the Nodegrid platform, streamlining edge operations and ensuring their toolbox is available on the OOB network. Nodegrid also simplifies fleet management with true zero-touch provisioning to securely and automatically deploy configurations at edge business sites.

Want to unify your zero trust edge solutions with Nodegrid?

Nodegrid provides a robust, vendor-neutral platform to unify and extend your zero trust edge capabilities. Request a free demo to see Nodegrid in action. Watch Demo

What to do if You’re Ransomware’d: A Healthcare Example

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Data Logging, Improve Network Security, Micro-segmentation, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, User Management, Virtualization, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

What to do if youre ransomwared

This article was written by James Cabe, CISSP, a 30-year cybersecurity expert who’s helped major companies including Microsoft and Fortinet.

Ransomware gangs target the innocent and vulnerable. They hit a Chicago hospital in December 2023, a London hospital in October the same year, and schools and hospitals in New Jersey as recently as January 2024. This is one of the biggest reasons I’m committed to stopping these criminals by educating organizations on how to re-think and re-architect their approach to cybersecurity.

In previous articles, I discussed IMI (Isolated Management Infrastructure) and IRE (Isolated Recovery Environments), and how they could have quickly altered outcomes for MGM, Ragnar Locker victims, and organizations affected by the MOVEit vulnerability. Using IMI and IRE, organizations find that the key to not only speedy recovery, but also to limiting the blast radius and attack persistence, is isolation.

Why is isolation (not segmentation) key to ransomware recovery?

The NIST framework for incident response has five steps: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. It’s missing a crucial step, however: Isolate. Stay tuned for a full breakdown of this in my next article. But the reason this is so critical is because attacks move at machine speed, and are very pervasive and persistent. If your management network is not fully isolated from production assets, the infection spreads to everything. Suddenly, you’re locked out completely and looking at months of tedious recovery. For healthcare providers, this jeopardizes everything from patient care to regulatory compliance.

Isolation is integral to building a resilience system, or in other words, a system that gives you more than basic serial console/out-of-band access and instead provides an entire infrastructure dedicated to keeping you in control of your systems — be it during a ransomware attack, ISP outage, natural disaster, etc. Because this infrastructure is physically and virtually isolated from production (no dependencies on production switches/routers, no open management ports, etc.), it’s nearly impossible for attackers to lock you out.

So, what really should you do if you’re ransomware’d? Let’s walk through an example attack on a healthcare system, and compare the traditional DR (Disaster Recovery) response to the IMI/IRE approach.

Ransomware in Healthcare: Disaster Recovery vs Isolated Recovery

Suppose you’re in charge of a hospital’s network. MDIoT, patient databases, and DICOM storage are the crown jewels of your infrastructure. Suddenly, you discover ransomware has encrypted patient records and is likely spreading quickly to other crown jewel assets. The risks and potential fallout can’t be understated. Millions of people are depending on you to protect their sensitive info, while the hospital is depending on you to help them avoid regulatory/legal penalties and ensure they can continue operating.

The problem with Disaster Recovery

Though the word ‘recovery’ is in the name, the DR approach is limited in its capacity to recover systems during an attack. Disaster Recovery typically employs a couple things:

  • Backups, which are copies of data, configurations, and code that are used to restore a production system when it fails.
  • Redundancy, which involves duplicating critical systems, services, and applications as a failsafe in the event that primaries go down (think cellular failover devices, secondary firewalls, etc.).

What happens when you activate your DR processes? It’s highly likely that you won’t be able to, and that’s because the typical DR setup relies on the production network. There’s no isolation.

Think about it this way: your backup servers need direct access to the data they’re backing up. If your file servers get pwned, your backup servers will, too. If your primary firewall gets hacked, your secondary will, too. The problem with backup and redundancy systems — and any system, for that matter — is that when they depend on the underlying infrastructure to remain operational, they’re just as susceptible to outages and attacks. It’s like having a reserve parachute that depends on the main parachute.

And what about the rest of your systems? You just discovered the attack has encrypted your servers and is quickly bringing operations to a crawl. How are you going to get in and fight back? What if you try to log into your management network, only to find that you’re locked out? All of your tools, configurations, and capabilities have been compromised.

This is why CISA, the FBI, US Navy, and other agencies recommend implementing Isolated Management Infrastructure.

IMI and IRE guarantee you can fight back against ransomware

You discover that the ransomware has spread. Not only has it encrypted data and stopped operations, but it has also locked you out of your own management network and is affecting the software configurations throughout the hospital. This is where IMI (Isolated Management Infrastructure) and IRE (Isolated Recovery Environment) come in.

Because IMI is physically separate from affected systems, it guarantees management access so teams can set up communication and a temporary ‘war room’ for incident response. The IRE can then be created using a combination of cellular, compute, connectivity, and power control (see diagram for design and steps). Docker containers should be used to bring up each step.

Diagram showing a chart containing the systems and open-source tools that can be deployed for an Isolated Recovery Environment

Image: The infrastructure and incident response protocol involved in the Isolated Recovery Environment. These products were chosen from free or open source projects that have proven to be very useful in each of these stages of recovery. These can be automated in pieces for each phase, and then be brought down via Docker container to eliminate the risk of leakage or risk during each phase.

Without diving too far into the technicalities, the IRE enables you to recover survivable data, restore software configurations, and prevent reinfection. Here are some things you can do (and should do) in this scenario, courtesy of the IRE:

Establish your war room

You can’t fight ransomware if you can’t securely communicate with your team. Use the IRE to create offline, break-the-glass accounts that are not attached to email. This allows you to communicate and set up ticketing for forensics purposes.

Isolate affected systems

There’s no use running antivirus if reinfection can occur. Use the IRE to take offline the switch that connects the backup and file servers. Isolate these servers from each other and shut down direct backup ports. Then, you can remote-in (KVM, iKVM, iDRAC) to run antivirus and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response).

Restore data and device images

The key is to have backup data at its most current, both for patient data and device/software configurations. Because the IRE provides an isolated environment, and you’ve already pulled your backups offline, you can gradually restore data, re-image devices, and restore configurations without risking reinfection. The IRE ensures devices “keep away” from each other until they can be cleansed and recovered.

Things You’ll Need To Build The IMI and IRE

Network Automation Blueprint

We’ve created a comprehensive blueprint that shows how to implement the architecture for IMI and IRE. Don’t let the name fool you. The Network Automation Blueprint covers everything from establishing a dedicated management network, to automating deployment of services for ransomware recovery. Get your PDF copy now at the link below.

Download blueprint

Gen 3 Console Servers To Replace End-of-Life Gear

It’s nearly impossible to build the IMI or deploy the IRE using older console servers. That’s because these only give you basic remote access and a hint of automation capabilities. You’ll still need the ability to run VMs and containers. Gen 3 console servers let you do all of the things for IMI and IRE, like full control plane/data plane separation, hosting apps, and deploying VMs/containers on-demand. They’ve also been validated by Synopsys and have built-in security features I’ve been talking about for years. Check out the link below for resources about Gen 3 and how we’ll help you upgrade.

Upgrade to Gen 3

Get in touch with me!

I’d love to talk with you about IMI, IRE, and resilience systems. These are becoming more crucial to operational resilience and ransomware recovery, and countries are passing new regulations that will require these approaches. Get in touch with me via social media to talk about this!

IT Automation vs Orchestration: What’s the Difference?

by | Feb 26, 2024 | Application Hosting, Increase Productivity, Monitoring & Reporting, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Remote Network Management, Serial Consoles, Simplify Branch Infrastructure, Vendor Neutral Platform, Virtualization, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

it-automation-vs-orchestration

IT automation and orchestration are two important concepts in the field of information technology that are often used interchangeably but are actually quite different. IT automation focuses on individual tasks, whereas orchestration encompasses multiple tasks or even entire workflows. Each approach produces different results and helps teams meet different goals. They also have their own benefits and challenges that must be considered. This guide compares IT automation vs orchestration to clear up misconceptions and help organizations choose the right approach to streamlining their IT operations.

Table of contents
    1. IT automation vs orchestration: What’s the difference?
    2. The benefits of IT automation vs orchestration
    3. The challenges of IT automation and orchestration
    4. Tips for overcoming IT automation and orchestration challenges
    5. Choosing IT automation vs orchestration
    6. IT automation vs orchestration simplified

IT Automation vs Orchestration: What’s the Difference?

IT Automation vs Orchestration

IT automation refers to the use of technology to automate repetitive tasks and processes, including things like automated backups, software updates, and monitoring systems. The goal of IT automation is to free up time and resources for IT professionals by automating routine tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Orchestration, on the other hand, is the coordination and management of multiple processes or entire workflows. This can include things like configuring and deploying new servers, managing network connections, and monitoring the performance of many different systems. The goal of orchestration is to improve the overall efficiency of IT operations, reducing costs and enabling greater scalability.

The benefits of IT automation vs orchestration

Benefits of IT Automation vs Orchestration

IT Automation

  • Saves time
  • Reduces human error
  • Improves compliance

Orchestration

  • Increases operational efficiency
  • Improves network scalability
  • Ensures IT system reliability

One of the main benefits of IT automation is that it can save time and resources for IT professionals. By automating routine tasks, IT teams can focus on more strategic initiatives and projects. Additionally, automation helps reduce human error and increases the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of tasks. Automation also improves compliance, as automated processes are less prone to human negligence and are easier to audit.

Orchestration, on the other hand, helps improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations. By automating the coordination and management of multiple tasks, orchestration helps ensure that different systems and processes work together seamlessly. Additionally, orchestration helps improve the scalability and reliability of IT systems by ensuring different components are configured and deployed correctly.

The challenges of IT automation and orchestration

IT Automation and Orchestration Challenges

IT Complexity

Teams can’t effectively automate IT operations unless they thoroughly understand all the tasks, systems, and workflows comprising a highly complex network.

Automation Skills Gap

A high demand for automation engineers makes it difficult and expensive to recruit, train, and retain qualified IT automation and orchestration professionals.

Supporting Infrastructure

Effective automation and orchestration deployments require a robust underlying infrastructure of specialized hardware and software solutions.

One of the main challenges of automation and orchestration is the complexity of IT systems. As organizations rely more heavily on specialized technology and grow both in size and in number of business sites, IT systems become increasingly complex and difficult to manage. Automation and orchestration help reduce complexity by automating routine tasks and coordinating the management of different systems. However, teams must understand those tasks and systems well enough to know how to automate them effectively; otherwise, mistakes will proliferate or there will be gaps in automated workflows.

Another IT automation and orchestration challenge is the need for skilled professionals to deploy and manage these solutions. As automation and orchestration become more prevalent, the demand for skilled professionals has increased, making it harder (and more expensive) to recruit and retain qualified automation engineers. The alternative is for organizations to spend time and resources training existing IT staff to work with automation and orchestration.

Additionally, organizations need to invest in the technology and infrastructure necessary to support automation and orchestration. Some examples of these automation infrastructure components include:

  • Gen 3 out-of-band (OOB) serial consoles, which allow teams to deploy third-party automation on an OOB network that doesn’t rely on production infrastructure, improving security and resilience. Gen 3 OOB also moves bandwidth-hogging orchestration workflows off the production network, which reduces latency for better performance.
  • Software-defined networking, which virtualizes the control and management processes and abstracts them from underlying LAN and WAN hardware. SDN, SD-WAN, and SD-Branch technologies enable a high degree of automation for networking workflows such as load balancing, application-aware routing, and failover.
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which turns infrastructure configurations into software code. IaC enables the use of version control, zero-touch deployments, automatic configuration management, automated security testing, and other tools and processes that support automation and improve network resilience.
  • Orchestrator software, which controls all of the automated workflows on a network. The orchestrator is the central hub for teams to create, deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot automated workflows and infrastructure.
  • AIOps, or artificial intelligence for IT operations, which analyzes all the logs and data pulled from automated infrastructure devices and security appliances. AIOps provides predictive maintenance insights, automatic root-cause analysis (RCA), enhanced threat detection, and other functionality to help support a complex, automated network infrastructure.

Tips for overcoming IT automation and orchestration challenges

While every organization will face unique IT automation and orchestration hurdles, there are two basic tips to help simplify any deployment. Using consolidated network hardware and vendor-neutral platforms can help reduce the complexity of network infrastructure, the need to hire additional staff, and the cost to deploy automation infrastructure.

  • Consolidated network hardware, such as all-in-one branch/edge gateway routers, significantly reduces the number of devices deployed at each business site. Fewer devices to automate means less complexity, and organizations save money on deployment costs like hardware overhead and automation license seats.
  • Vendor-neutral platforms, such as the Nodegrid infrastructure management platform from ZPE Systems, allow teams to use the automation and orchestration tools they’re most comfortable with regardless of provider, reducing the skills gap. Open platforms ensure seamless interoperability between all the various automated components to decrease management complexity. Vendor-neutral hardware also allows organizations to run software from multiple vendors on a single device, enabling even greater network consolidation to reduce the complexity and cost of automated infrastructure deployments.

Choosing IT automation vs orchestration

IT automation and orchestration are interconnected concepts that are frequently, but incorrectly, used interchangeably. Automation focuses on individual tasks, while orchestration manages multiple tasks and entire workflows. Both automation and orchestration can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations, but they have their unique benefits and challenges. Organizations must carefully consider their IT systems and needs when deciding which approach to use.

IT automation vs orchestration simplified

The network automation experts at ZPE Systems have helped Big Tech brands like Amazon and Uber improve operational efficiency and resilience with IT automation and orchestration. Learn how to use these best practices to streamline your IT operations by downloading our Network Automation Blueprint.

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Network Management Best Practices

by | Feb 16, 2024 | Improve Network Security, Increase Productivity, Network Automation, Remote Network Management

A collage of concepts related to network management best practices for resilience and security.

Network management involves administering, controlling, and monitoring an organization’s network. For most companies, the top priority for network teams is ensuring the continuous availability of critical business services, even during disruptive events like natural disasters, ransomware attacks, and infrastructure failures. Network resilience is the ability to continue operating (if in a degraded state) and delivering digital services in the face of adversity. This guide discusses the network management best practices for improving and supporting network resilience.  

Network management best practices

Network Management Best Practices for Resilience

Isolated Management Infrastructure (IMI)

  • Moves management interfaces off the production network to protect them from cybercriminals

  • Out-of-band (OOB) management ensures continuous remote access to IMI even when production infrastructure is offline

  • Isolated Recovery Environments (IREs) allow teams to restore infrastructure and services without risking reinfection

Network Automation

  • Reduces the risk of failures or security breaches by eliminating human error in configuration changes

  • Simplifies fleet management tasks like connectivity checks, device location monitoring, and software patching

  • Application-aware routing, intelligent load balancing, and automatic failover ensure optimal performance and availability

Network Security

  • Zero trust security protects valuable data and resources from attackers already on the network

  • SASE and SSE extend enterprise security policies and tools to remote users, applications, and devices

  • AIOps provides enhanced security monitoring, threat detection, and remediation capabilities

Isolated Management Infrastructure (IMI)

Major ransomware attacks and breaches happen so frequently that cybersecurity professionals must now operate as if the network has already been compromised. This high-threat atmosphere led to the rise of the Zero Trust Security methodology discussed below. It’s also why a recent CISA Binding Directive outlines the best practice of isolating your management interfaces to a designated management network.

Moving all control functions for network infrastructure off the production LAN reduces the risk of cybercriminals accessing your management interfaces and “crown jewel” assets. This practice is known as isolated management infrastructure (IMI), and it separates the management plane from the data plane using designated network infrastructure. Doing so prevents attackers on the production network from finding and accessing the interfaces used to control servers, firewalls, routers, and other critical infrastructure devices. Thanks to management network segmentation and zero-trust security controls, hacking an IMI is almost impossible.

A diagram showing a multi-layered isolated management infrastructure.

The best practice is to use out-of-band (OOB) serial consoles (a.k.a. console servers or terminal servers) to help construct the IMI. An OOB management solution uses dedicated network interfaces (such as 4G/5G cellular LTE or fiber) to provide an Internet connection for remote management access that doesn’t rely upon the primary production network at all. The benefit of using an OOB console server for the IMI is that teams have continuous access to monitor, manage, troubleshoot, and recover remote infrastructure when the production network is unavailable. Additionally, routing management ports to terminate on OOB terminal servers deployed top-of-rack creates multiple layers of management isolation to protect critical assets from criminals on the network.

A diagram showing the components of an isolated recovery environment.

Another network management best practice aided by IMI and OOB serial consoles is an isolated recovery environment (IRE). An IRE is built with designated infrastructure that is easily and quickly deployable, including an OOB control plane (such as a serial console), redundant storage & compute, and security and recovery tools. This gives teams a safe environment to recover from ransomware attacks without worrying about reinfection. Ideally, the IMI will use devices that consolidate network functions to enable easy deployments and scaling of IRE and OOB, but those devices should have robust features that can host the apps, tools, and services required to rebuild systems and restore data.

Network automation

Modern networks are large, complex, and ever-expanding, with user expectations growing more demanding every day. Even the best network administrator sometimes makes mistakes, either through negligence or because they have an overwhelming amount of work to do. Maybe they copy and paste the wrong security setting for a particular firewall appliance in a rush to deploy a new site on time; perhaps they miss a critical device health alert because they’re responding to a separate incident. These human errors, while understandable, can have devastating consequences on network resilience by causing security breaches, equipment failure, and service outages.

Network automation removes human error from the equation, ensuring network management tasks are carried out perfectly every time. Automation streamlines the most tedious network and fleet management tasks so teams can improve efficiency without allowing anything to fall through the cracks. Automation tools also respond to changing network conditions faster than human administrators to optimize the performance and availability of critical systems and services.

Network Automation Examples

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) abstracts infrastructure configurations from the underlying hardware so they can be written and deployed as repeatable, automatable scripts.

Zero Touch Provisioning automatically downloads and installs new network device configurations with little to no human interaction to streamline remote deployments.

Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) decouples WAN control functions from the underlying hardware to enable features like application-aware routing, intelligent load balancing, and automatic failover to improve performance and availability.

Automatic Patch Management ensures software vulnerabilities are closed before being exploited by cybercriminals while providing automatic recovery and rollback in case of issues.

Network security

As discussed above, network breaches occur so frequently that it’s now a security best practice to assume attackers are already on the network. This is part of the zero trust security methodology, which follows the principle of “never trust, always verify” regarding all the users, devices, and applications that access the network. Zero trust security uses strong authentication methods (e.g., 2FA or one-time passwords), hardware roots of trust, and network micro-segmentation. These methods prevent attackers from moving around the network and accessing valuable resources (such as management interfaces).

Another security-related network management best practice is to extend zero-trust controls and policies to the network’s edges, such as to work-from-home devices, branch offices, and other remote business sites. This is achieved using edge-centric security solutions such as Security Service Edge (SSE) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). These technologies route remote, web-destined network traffic through a whole stack of cloud-based security solutions. This allows organizations to apply consistent security to edge traffic without creating bottlenecks at a centralized firewall or deploying additional security appliances at each site.

A diagram illustrating a basic SASE network security architecture.

Another emerging network management best practice, especially for complex, automated infrastructures, is using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to aid security and recovery. For example, AIOps solutions analyze data pulled from various sources on the network, including monitoring platforms, security appliances, and system event logs. AIOps is excellent at detecting anomalies, extrapolating potential consequences, and positing solutions. It can find novel and zero-day threats on the network, spot the signs of an imminent device failure, and perform root-cause analysis (RCA) to discover the source of problems. AIOps enhances the management, automation, and security practices on this list to improve the overall efficiency and resilience of enterprise networks.

Network management FAQs

1. How do I ensure interoperability amongst network management solutions?

Managing a modern network requires many different solutions, often from many different vendors. All these solutions must work together to prevent the management plane from getting too complex and ensure there are no coverage gaps. One option is to stick within one vendor’s ecosystem, but you may miss out on beneficial features or pay for functionality you don’t need. The best approach is to use a vendor-neutral (a.k.a. vendor-agnostic) network management platform to unify all your tools. To learn more, read The Benefits of Vendor Agnostic Platforms in Network Management.

2. What’s the difference between network automation and orchestration?

Network automation and network orchestration are two concepts that are often referenced together, leading to some confusion about the difference between them. Network automation focuses on individual tasks and processes, such as deploying a single software update. Network orchestration involves coordinating and managing multiple tasks and processes, or even entire workflows, such as configuring and deploying all the software on a server. To learn more, read IT Automation vs Orchestration: What’s the Difference?

3. Is network resilience the same as redundancy and backups?

Redundancy and backups are both critical to business continuity, but they do not equate to network resilience. Backups are copies of data, configurations, and code that are used to restore failed (or compromised) production systems. Redundancy duplicates services, applications, and systems so the primary versions can be “failed over” in case of failure or attack. Resilience is an organization’s overall ability to recover or adapt when major disruptions occur. To learn more, read Network Resilience: What is a Resilience System?

Resilient network management with Nodegrid

These network management best practices represent the industry-leading solutions for addressing the most common resilience challenges facing organizations. The network resilience experts at ZPE Systems can help you implement these practices with Gen 3 out-of-band management solutions and a vendor-neutral network management platform that supports automation. ZPE’s Nodegrid platform is the perfect ransomware recovery multi-tool, providing an isolated control plane as well as access to all the tools and software needed to restore critical operations.

Network management best practices for ransomware recovery and resilience

Learn more about using Nodegrid to improve ransomware resilience by downloading our white paper, 3 Steps to Ransomware Recovery.

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ZPE Systems offers various solutions to help you implement your enterprise network management strategy.

Including data center infrastructure management, critical remote infrastructure management, and a secure uCPE gateway for distributed branch & edge networks. To learn more, contact us online. 

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