Secure Access Service Edge transforms edge networking. See how ZPE Systems — a leading innovator in network infrastructure management — introduces even more capabilities to this cloud-based solution.
What is Secure Access Service Edge?
Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE (‘sassy’), is a new concept that’s disrupting traditional edge networking. SASE combines networking and security services in the cloud, to deliver both wherever you need them. This means bringing safe access to every edge of your network, whether it’s to your most remote branch locations, or to on-the-go users traveling across the globe.
“SASE provides flexible, on-demand edge networking that keeps users protected no matter where they are…”– Jordan Baker, Sr. Technology Writer + IT Nerd
The Problem
Organizations are more distributed than ever, forcing you to backhaul traffic through your data center and main enterprise firewall. This leaves you dealing with several crippling issues, like:
Slowed speeds due to bottlenecking
Frequent delays from service-chaining latencies
Balancing connectivity vs security, especially at remote sites
Cumbersome scaling that requires loads of time & resources
The Solution
With SASE, you get a cloud-based solution that delivers safe and reliable access as close to users as possible. SASE combines network services such as SD-WAN, bandwidth aggregation, and NaaS with security solutions like FWaaS, Cloud SWG, and VPN. It delivers all these via an identity-driven, cloud-based model and allows users to connect from anywhere, while your main network can regain smooth operation. In short, SASE untethers your network edge so users can connect wherever they go:
Eliminate bottlenecking with agile security
Get fast service using tightly-coupled virtualized functions
Deliver reliable & secure access anywhere, thanks to the cloud
Scale on demand using built-in automation support
Why Use SASE?
Traditionally, scaling involves deploying complex stacks of networking and security solutions. Every device in your stack requires careful provisioning, which drags down a lot of your resources and complicates your ability to bring new locations online. But with SASE, you can deploy fewer devices thanks to a converged, cloud-based stack. Because your critical functions are no longer served by individual devices, you get the flexibility to scale on demand.To manage your network, SASE simplifies your job because it is a converged software stack in the cloud. You don’t need to deal with cumbersome, on-site management or a mishmash of loosely-coupled point solutions. Your IT staff can manage your network remotely because access is no longer bound to certain locations. Your SASE platform connects your network resources and allows you to access them all from one place.
ZPE Systems Gives You Even More Flexibility
ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid family of hardware and software provide you with an innovative SASE network management platform.Nodegrid features consolidated, all-in-one devices that reduce your stack and your hardware footprint. The patented x86 64-bit architecture lets you host virtualized applications as well. Instead of having to juggle third-party hosting solutions, you can deploy network functions directly on Nodegrid appliances.Nodegrid is also vendor neutral, giving you the freedom to tailor your solutions to your needs. You don’t have to compromise based on a specific vendor’s offerings. Instead, choose the combination of SD-WAN, firewall, cybersecurity, and other applications that suit you, no matter which vendors they’re from. The built-in Nodegrid software gives you an additional layer of convenience, providing a single interface that normalizes control of all your solutions. You can perform updates, maintenance, and other tasks across your network, all using one intuitive tool.To top it off, ZPE’s Nodegrid devices support automation using popular tools such as Ansible, Python, JSON, Bash, and others. You can streamline scaling, and even set up zero touch provisioning to automate every deployment. Nodegrid appliances are also modular so you can adapt more easily to your business’ changing needs. Remote out-of-band management capabilities enhance your visibility and control, while dual-cellular failover keeps you more resistant to outages and helps you maintain business continuity.Article originally featured in CIO Review
ZPE Systems – A Smarter Vantage Point Today, as broadband services have become more reliable and cost-effective, companies are shifting from expensive MPLS links to SD-WAN, which promises firms more agile, dynamic, and inexpensive branch-office connectivity that doesn’t lose its quality of service. Enterprises can define the traffic steering rules for each application, centralized monitoring, and analytics to support deployments and reduce management complexities in sites. However, the managing, deploying, and provisioning of remote offices as companies strive to shift from MPLS lines to SD-WAN has become an expensive and time-consuming process. Traditional SD-WAN requires pre-configuration and is not capable of zero touch provisioning/deployment at the final location. This limits the deployment and scalability of remote offices and branch locations and typically requires specialized personnel on-site to aid in the implementation of the network.
That being said, it is a tedious task to manage one or more appliances such as servers, switches, access points, and more at each branch as every single appliance has its own unique operating systems and management tools. These require manual updates and configuration changes, adding complexity as teams try to manage devices from different vendors. In short, companies spend too much time performing manual, inefficient, and repetitive processes to support their network hardware and software. Also, the lack of visibility of the total deployment with no centralized management, clustering, or absence of search capabilities to track changes in the network adds to the company’s woes.
Although the enterprise network solutions market is replete with companies that purport to solve the problem—one company, ZPE Systems, provides the vantage point. ZPE Systems offers secure hardware-and software-based remote access and control to bridge the gap between existing legacy systems and emerging technologies by supporting data center, SD-Branch, and edge networks with an integrated infrastructure platform—a single pane of glass interface. The company was the first solution provider to offer an “Open Infrastructure Management Solution” for in-band and out-of-band access and control of the network, compute, storage, and power devices in both physical and virtual IT Infrastructures. “Using a single pane of glass (ZPE Systems integrated infrastructure platform) that supports automation and provisioning, you can keep your network secure, up to date, and, most of all—running smoothly through otherwise costly outages,” states Arnaldo Zimmermann, CEO of ZPE Systems.
Why you need better Remote Network Infrastructure Management!
ZPE Systems streamlines deployment and management of the SD-Branch to decrease downtime and cost of maintenance. With a strong data center background, the team at ZPE brings their Out-of-Band (OOB) expertise and extends it out to the Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) by providing users the ability to establish a 24×7 remote virtual presence throughout their network.
ZPE System’s Nodegrid provides end-users with the ability to provision and deploy devices in remote locations without putting specialized staff on-site. The Nodegrid platform empowers SD-Branch, SASE, Firewall, and IoT partners to collaborate on a symbiotic network and OOB environment, complete with cellular failover, network clustering, and cloud management. With an automation feature built into the solution, it helps eliminate manual errors and standardize procedures and the deployment of repeatable tasks. Besides, the Nodegrid platform removes the need for multiple boxes and complex configurations. The company’s platform is a vendor-neutral solution and also virtualizes guest-OS applications and offers SASE-and SD-Branch-integrated services. This helps ZPE deliver simple, centralized remote management via one console. “Since our solution provides a remote virtual presence and decreases the number of devices onsite, it not only simplifies managing and upgrading those systems but also reduces operating costs as on-site IT support and maintenance are redundant,” explains Zimmermann. Furthermore, companies can extend their networking options via Guest OS and SVN, compute power options by deploying uCPE on Nodegrid Compute cards, and IoT options by using Docker and Kubernetes applications on Nodegrid.
Eliminating the Need for Shipping Pre-configured Devices
“Another key functionality ZPE Systems provides companies is the ability to remotely configure devices securely and do away with the need for shipping pre- configured devices to their branch,” says Zimmermann. The company provides a cloud-based management platform called “ZPE Cloud” that simplifies initial deployment, configuration, and ongoing management of branch devices and provides users with a 360 overview of their entire implementation along with in-depth analytics for enhanced decision making.
“The beauty of our solution is that we access via the cloud securely, to act as if you are on-site and get your environment running securely without sending a team or pre-configured device to the site,” elucidates Zimmermann. The ZPE cloud is a multi-tenant, highly secure cloud platform that enables users to manage, monitor, and deploy consistent automated provisioning of their systems on a global basis. ZPE Cloud brings together all Nodegrid products on a single platform. Users can reconnect their branch to a NOC automatically and securely via VPN or IPSec, even if Nodegrid was the first device deployed at the office. “Overall, it’s a cost-effective and smarter way to deploy devices in remote environments,” adds Zimmermann.
A New Paradigm in Networking Solutions
“Innovation is our biggest differentiator. We routinely collaborate with our customer’s network architects and engineers on future requirements and solutions. Therefore, we are building new use cases before anyone else in the market,” states Zimmermann.
ZPE Systems is continuously working with companies from various industries to test and implement new technologies. The effectiveness of ZPE Systems solutions was on full display when it assisted a large firm to provision and remotely manage devices across hundreds of locations in diverse environments and deploy SD-WAN as a virtual guest-OS. By implementing the company’s Nodegrid solution, the customer was not only able to use zero-touch provisioning and remotely manage their boxes, but they were also able to consolidate high-level, multi-tiered SASE solutions (128T routing and Palo Alto level 4 firewall) into a high-availability configuration. ZPE Systems has helped automate provisioning and implement a seamless setup, thus supporting the customer’s many complex VM architectures. Furthermore, since the customer decreased their reliance on field engineers to go to each of these remote locations (decreased costs and downtime), it helped in closing back-door security risks by eliminating the practice of shipping pre-configured devices.
Thanks to the company’s customer centric approach to formulating solutions, ZPE Systems has expanded and brought their expertise across international waters to Europe by establishing its European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with engineering development centers in the US, Brazil, and India. “Our competitive edge is driven by customer interaction. We can listen to the customer and make engineering changes quickly and swiftly, to meet their needs,” says Livio Ceci, VP of Engineering.
In the current scenario, enterprises are undergoing digital transformations more than ever before by adding new applications to boost productivity, reduce costs, and meet the growing demand of their customers. There is tremendous pressure on CIOs and IT leaders to orchestrate a new network strategy to protect and control all business-critical applications in real-time, regardless of the size of their network, sites, or users. As the enterprise networking space continues to evolve and drive companies to keep pace, ZPE Systems solutions and services, coupled with their thirst for innovation, have hit the sweet spot to meet the ever-changing requirements of clients. “We will continue innovating and pushing additional appliances for new functionality in OS and Cloud. We want to extend our partnerships with major market-leading cyber-security companies” concludes Ceci.
Fremont, CA, April 30, 2019 – ZPE Systems, Inc. (www.zpesystems.com), a leading provider of software-defined, vendor-neutral open infrastructure management solutions, today announced the winner of 2018 Partner of the Year Award, Rahi Systems.
Rahi Systems, a global provider of solutions and services that maximize the performance, scalability and efficiency of today’s integrated environment, has been recognized as ZPE Systems’ 2018 Partner of the Year. The award recognizes Rahi Systems for their continued year over year growth in revenue, immense solution knowledge, and outstanding contributions to ZPE Systems’ success.
“We are very grateful to have a partner like Rahi Systems, who plays an integral role in bringing awareness of our open infrastructure management solutions to some of the world’s largest brands.” said Arnaldo Zimmermann, CEO of ZPE Systems. “Rahi Systems engages customers with a wealth of knowledge and full understanding of the benefits that ZPE Systems’ solutions provide end users and are tremendously successful in highlighting those value propositions to end users.”
Tarun Raisoni, Rahi Systems’ CEO and Founder, accepted the award on behalf of the company and had this to say, “Customers around the world in every industry are seeking automation, reliability, extensibility and uptime when it comes to deploying and managing their IT Infrastructure; ZPE’s Nodegrid solutions are some of the most differentiated offerings in the market today.”
“We recognize the tremendous job our partners do; Rahi Systems was integral in our growth of over 300% in 2018. We congratulate Rahi Systems on their achievements and look forward to our continuing success together as partners in 2019” said Zimmermann.
About ZPE Systems, Inc.
ZPE Systems is rethinking the way networks are built and managed by providing software-defined, vendor-neutral infrastructure management and networking solutions.
ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid® platform consolidates, organizes, and simplifies the need for a complete remote access and control solution; Nodegrid solutions address the OOB management needs of the data center, unifies edge networking environments, manages converged infrastructure and provides intelligent automation. ZPE’s smart, consolidated IT management solutions reduce downtime, deliver OPEX savings, and extends the reach of IT workforces.
ZPE’s global headquarters is located in Fremont, California with offices throughout the US and globally in Ireland, India, Brazil and Japan.
ZPE Systems, the ZPE logo and Nodegrid are registered trademarks of ZPE Systems, Inc.
Rahi Systems delivers a suite of solutions and services that optimize the cost, performance, scalability, manageability and efficiency of today’s integrated environment. Founded in 2012 by entrepreneurs with deep understanding of the needs and challenges of service providers, government agencies and enterprises, the company has grown through a solutions-oriented approach, outstanding support and a culture of customer success. Rahi has its corporate headquarters in Fremont, Calif., with offices in the U.S., India, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan and Australia.
Enterprise Networking Magazine Names ZPE Systems “Top 10 Networking Startups of 2018”
Edge Computing Increasing the Scope for Business
In today’s day and age of cloud computing that firmly lies at the edge of the network, Edge computing still is a relatively new concept and is yet to receive widespread recognition. However, that hasn’t stopped ZPE Systems from developing the industry’s first ever ‘Open Infrastructure Management Solution™’—an open infrastructure, open hardware, and open software design. It is an open framework infrastructure that is built at the edge of the network. “With ZPE Systems, we brought a new concept, where the appliances in the data center were built on top of an open framework—from hardware to software, which is in-line with the current trends at the moment,” says Arnaldo Zimmermann, Co-Founder, and CEO of ZPE Systems.
The company delivers a vendor-neutral environment where it can interact with IT devices inside data centers—mostly networking devices, power management devices, and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) devices. Most of the time, customers use purpose-built products that have minimal capabilities. The lack of flexibility in purpose-built products is a major limiting factor, and this is what ZPE aims to change. Built on 64-bit Intel-based open framework and interoperability, the hardware and software give customers new perspectives on how they can manage and deploy their data centers. “By opening the platform, we got a new view sense of what is possible in the data center. Along with automation, our customers can do more with a limited number of resources,” explains Zimmermann.
ZPE’s solutions incorporate the data center approach of easy deployment and integration at the edge of the network with zero-touch provisioning. Zero-touch provisioning enables customers to connect the device to the network, after which, the table retrieves the configurations, firmware updates, additional instructions, and self-configure the guidelines from a central location.
“The firm also puts a huge emphasis on security, ensuring that the devices are bulletproof and it also performs vulnerability checks for penetration and investigation” – Enterprise Networking Magazine
Large organizations have points of presence and deployment—something that remote offices would like to enjoy as well, with the same type of IT infrastructure management. However, these remote locations may not have the technical expertise or the IT personnel supporting them like a data center. ZPE has made it possible for a round the clock presence in these offices so that IT teams can provide the support and can bring the system back online if anything is happening on the edge. ZPE’s devices are capable of 4G LTE cellular connectivity, which allows for reconnection to the edge securely over IPSec and VPN in the event of a network failure. The firm also puts a huge emphasis on security, ensuring that the devices are bulletproof and it also performs vulnerability checks for penetration and investigation. The level of protection is maintained because the software is continually being updated with the current environment in mind, enabling much faster reactions to new discoveries in the market.
“Because the edge has no standard and every location is built out completely different, having the flexibility to have a device at that location while offering remote support or monitoring is our way of being flexible at that edge,” says Alvin Chan, Marketing Manager at ZPE Systems. Being on the edge, ZPE can continuously add additional functionalities and capabilities, either in the form of virtual machines or Network function virtualization (NFV) in the form of a docker application. ZPE also supports additional tools in cases when customers use a Puppet, Chef or Ansible management configuration interface and this support enables the customers to scale with ease.
ZPE is actively expanding to other markets and has partnered with organizations in Europe, Asia, USA, South America and Australia. In terms of offerings, the firm will be adding additional features at the edge on its platform with applications that can be hosted on it. ZPE also plans to offer extra abilities as virtualized applications on the solution.
Cisco Announces End of Production for ISR2900 Series Integrated Services Routers
Cisco’s ever popular ISR2900 Series of integrated service routers has reached end of life. Cisco suggests the ISR4000 Series as the replacement – But is it right for you?
For standard densities, the ISR4000 should be a great fit for your environment. But what if you want more? What if you want a high-density solution?
Nodegrid Serial Console is the perfect replacement
NodeGrid Serial Consoles provide you with a high-density direct replacement that introduces a more secure and robust feature set to your environment. Ever wonder what it’d be like if you managed everything from a single platform? You don’t have to wonder any longer – Experience true vendor freedom with (SDI) Software-Defined Infrastructure – securely manage and control remote serial devices, regardless of vendor, from a single, unified management platform. With enterprise security protocols baked in, NSC gives you peace of mind knowing your environment is protected with the latest security measures. With the ISR2900 Series reaching its end of life, now is the perfect opportunity to adopt NodeGrid Serial Console and Open Infrastructure Management™.
What can Nodegrid Serial Console do for you?
Minimize local service contracts for remote sites
Provides faster MTTR
You no longer have to rely on non-technical people to restart/reset remote devices
Lower your recurring costs by replacing POTS lines with LTE
Ensure maximum uptime with multiple failover options
Reduce bandwidth costs
Reduce costs associated with provisioning new systems
We know change is tough to deal with – especially when replacing old systems.It can be a headache and can lead to tons of problems. Fortunately we’ve got you covered. As a Cisco Solution Partner, you can rest easy knowing that our NodeGrid Serial Console will seamlessly integrate with your new and/or existing infrastructure without a hiccup.
Cisco ISR4000 Series
ZPE NodeGrid Serial Console
Form Factor
1U-2U
1U
WAN Ports
1-2 GbE/SFP PoE available
2 GbE/SFP
USB Ports
1-2
3-14
Console Ports
4-48
16-96
Cabling
Proprietary
Straight-through
Power Options
PoE, AC and DC
SAC/DAC/SDC/DDC
Environmental Monitoring
No
Yes
Out of Band
Basic
Advanced
Routing
Router
Router
Switching
No
Yes
SSL VPN
No
Yes
IPv6
No
Yes
Contact a ZPE Systems Solution Specialist and schedule a Live Demo or NodeGrid Serial Console Test Drive
We are perfectly positioned to meet anything manufacturers can throw at us. We pioneered IT infrastructure access and control back in the day and we’re pioneering IT infrastructure access and control for today and the future. Check us out. You’ll be glad you did.
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