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10 Things to Consider when Choosing a Branch Networking Solution

by | Aug 6, 2020 | SD-Branch

Branch networking is evolving. From the core to the edge, you need to consider so many factors, such as scalability, costs of deployment & maintenance, the speed of installation, and much more. What affects all these the most are the devices and tools you use, which are likely obsolete, sitting in silos, and unable to handle the smart infrastructure of the modern network.

Advanced solutions are now available, and you can apply them to your legacy systems as well as new data flows. From cloud & edge computing, to machine learning & AI, you can take advantage of new capabilities, simplify management, and turn your network into a powerful asset

As you consider branch networking solutions, here are 10 things to keep in mind:

1. How Easy is it to Deploy?

Think about the entire deployment. Can your smart hands see the job through, and keep devices up to date? Can you download automation scripts from the cloud for quick, consistent scaling? Do you have zero-touch provisioning via WAN (IPv4 and IPv6) on your side?

If not, imagine how satisfying it would be to plug in your devices, and then everything just works. That’s the type of solution to look for.

2. Does it Keep Everything Secure?

Branch devices could let intruders through the back door, leaving your data center vulnerable. What do you do if this happens and an unauthorized user wreaks havoc on your data center? Do you have a built-in firewall, and can you enforce continuous security via cloud-based configuration backup and restore? Are authentication and security features strong enough to make sure only the right users have access from authorized locations?

Don’t settle for weak security that’ll leave you scrambling after an attack. Consider only a branch solution that delivers total peace of mind.

3. Can you get Secure Access from Anywhere?

You typically need high-level management software to gain access to your infrastructure. With that in mind, do you have a comprehensive out-of-band solution and branch devices that you can orchestrate remotely? Does your solution give you a 360-degree view of your entire infrastructure, without the need to set up a VPN or gain access via your data center?

On-site support is costly and time-consuming. That means you need a solution that provides robust remote capabilities for easy, secure access from anywhere — using just your browser.

4. Does it Prevent Issues & Keep Business Running?

Reducing maintenance needs and expenses is critical to having a modern network deliver value to your business. Does your solution pinpoint issues before they happen? Does it offer data logging and automation capabilities to help you ensure uptime? Can it alert you to configuration changes and possible security risks, and give you the tools to keep up with your needs?

No matter what solution you’re looking for, business continuity should be your top priority.

5. Does it Protect your Data?

Protecting your data means more than setting up a firewall and a few security measures. You need complete protection to safeguard your network (and your business). Do your branch devices support the latest in data and hardware security, with TPM for storing certificates? Do you have encrypted storage, multi-side certificates, and TLS 1.3 encryption? How about protection for boot and BIOS passwords, and even a kill switch?

Your data should always be safe, and your branch solution is a major component in securing all information that goes through your network.

6. Does it Cut Costs & Consolidate?

No matter how many branch locations you have, you need to reduce costs and maximize available space. Does your solution offer multi-function branch devices that are power- and cost-efficient? Does it give you switching and routing capabilities, support for virtualized functions, and on-premise vCPE, firewall, VPN, compute, and storage capabilities? Does it provide you with a 24×7 virtual presence thanks to reliable cellular failover?

The most efficient branch solutions consolidate functions into a single device, letting you take advantage of reduced operational expenses and a smaller network stack.

7. Can you See its Performance?

You can’t optimize your network without knowing where to start. Does your solution collect critical data points and allow you to inspect data logs? Does it build an audit trail of actions, and visualize KPIs with an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard?

You need to know how your network performs, and your solution should give you critical insights and tools to keep your infrastructure healthy.

8. Can you Scale Quickly & Easily?

For a modern network, your branch solution should be easy to replicate across many locations. Is it simple to deploy and provision? Will it grow as your business grows? Can you foresee the need to replace any devices, or will your solution help you scale even in the long run?

Whether you’re in IT, manufacturing, or retail, your branch solution needs to keep up with business no matter how far and wide you go.

9. Is it Truly Saving you Money?

When it comes to CAPEX and OPEX, you need to think long-term savings. Instead of getting excited over low initial costs, which usually come with additional expenses for training, maintenance, and more, think about how much it will cost over time. Will it need to be replaced often? Does it require anything else to run smoothly, and will it need frequent maintenance? Are there hidden fees or necessary add-ons to consider?

To maximize your savings, expect to pay more upfront for a true “set it and forget it” solution. In the long run, you’ll pay much less thanks to automation and other robust capabilities that minimize downtime and expenses.

10. Does it Work with Many Vendors?

Your network has devices from many vendors, which means your branch solution should work well with all of them. If it doesn’t, you’ll deal with ballooning time and cost expenses that will exhaust your staff and your business.

Look for a solution that streamlines the experience and gives you control with intuitive software. You’ll find an open-platform solution gives you seamless integration that helps you manage your entire infrastructure.

Bottom Line

If you’re in the market for a branch solution, get Nodegrid’s family of business-friendly hardware and software. Not only will you benefit from robust, consolidated devices, you’ll discover effortless network management that puts you in control no matter where you are.

Need More Information?

If you would like more information on how the Nodegrid family of Open Infrastructure Management Solutions address all the needs of Branch networks, contact a ZPE solution specialist by giving us a call -or- sending us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best Practices for Deploying your Branch Network

by | Aug 3, 2020 | SD-Branch, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Even if you’re familiar with these 10 things to consider when choosing a branch solution, you might not be sure about how to overcome the challenges of deploying branch networks. Here are some of those challenges.

Deploying Your Branch Network is a Physical Ordeal

Typically, deploying a branch network involves sending lots of equipment and staff to each satellite location. This is easier said than done, as anyone with any experience can tell you that it can be quite a monumental undertaking. That’s because there are many pieces to set into motion (figuratively and literally).

For starters, you need to define the location’s networking needs, and then develop a plan to set up your devices appropriately. When you’re ready, you need to ship your stacks of equipment to the location, which can take plenty of time and cost a lot of money, especially if the site is isolated.

You also need to define your staff needs and coordinate schedules. Putting the right personnel on-site subjects you to travel times and expenses, which can increase substantially even with minor delays.

Juggling all this can make it extremely difficult to stick to your timelines.

Managing the Branch Pulls Your Resources Away

Once you have all your devices and personnel on-site, all essential duties must be performed at the location. This includes not only your initial set up, but also for ongoing maintenance and management.

Installing, configuring, and provisioning your branch network requires staff to connect to each device. Using the command line interface (CLI) and other tools, they need to perform the tedious tasks that come with manually configuring every component in the stack.

The same goes for troubleshooting issues and managing the location going forward. If a critical issue arises, an outage occurs, or a change must be made, you need to put staff on-site. To keep the branch running, it’s imperative that you maintain some sort of physical staff presence at or near the location, which pulls them away from more critical business duties.

Scaling Doesn’t Scale Well

Deploying one branch network can be a challenge when you follow the typical methods. So what happens when you try to set up three, four, five — or fifteen — new locations?

As you can imagine, the logistics involved can make for a very hairy business situation, one that can bog down your resources and devour your budgets. Think of how costly it could be sending a dozen locations’ worth of equipment through customs, on top of the travel expenses necessary for many teams of specialized staff.

In short, scaling without the right tools and practices requires you to devote heaps of time and resources.

The Good News is, Nodegrid Makes it Easy

Branch Deployment Best Practices

ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid platform was built for branch networking. It includes everything you need to deploy, manage, and scale your branch networks. Features like all-in-one devices and intuitive software cut your stack in half (or more), while ZPE Cloud makes configuration management quick and easy.

 

Download the Tech Brief

 

 

Why Out-of-Band Management for the Branch is Better With Nodegrid

by | Jul 20, 2020 | Out of Band Management, SD-Branch, Videos

Out-of-band management (OOB) and business continuity go hand-in-hand. If set up properly, your OOB network should provide safe, reliable, always-ready access to your critical infrastructure components. Even when there’s not an outage, OOB is the key to optimizing your network — from troubleshooting issues, to maintaining speed & availability to all your users.

If you’re not entirely sure about out-of-band management’s big benefits, here are 3 reasons why you shouldn’t go a day without it.

OOB is essential to branch and satellite IT sites, where specialized personnel might only occasionally drop in. With this in mind, ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid platform offers OOB that’s far beyond ordinary:

  • Take advantage of secure access technologies, including non-VPN access links that work over any available WAN
  • Use zero touch provisioning for hands-off, automatic deployments — for even your most remote locations
  • Set up automation using popular tools & languages, for help with management of branch offices
  • Get ZPE Cloud for even more flexibility and remote management capabilities

Maintain Branch Deployments Using the Cloud

by | Jun 11, 2020 | Out of Band Management, SD-Branch

The cloud — it’s great for delivering services and applications that are crucial to your business. It can help your continuity efforts by providing SASE solutions where you need most, and it can also make deploying new locations easy with zero touch provisioning. But when it comes to out-of-band management, having cloud-based capabilities gives you even more power to efficiently maintain branch deployments.

Make Branch Deployments More Secure

When you’re setting up a new location, the cloud adds a layer of security not typical of common branch deployments. Normally, you need to preconfigure or pre-stage devices before shipping them to their final destination. This leaves your sensitive data vulnerable to being lost or stolen. Shipping unconfigured devices is one way to address this problem, but this means you’ll have to send specialized IT staff on-site to manually set up your appliances.

With the cloud, you can skirt both of these scenarios. Instead of risking sensitive info or dealing with extensive, on-site configuration, the cloud lets you provision remotely. This means that you can ship bare-metal or plain-vanilla devices, and fully configure them via the cloud only after they’ve safely reached the location.

Nodegrid Zero Touch Provisioning map

Control Access From a Central Location

Cloud-based maintenance allows you to control network access from a centralized location. You can implement appropriate security measures, adjust policy settings, and grant permissions only to authorized engineers and administrators. Even before you set up a new branch deployment, you can determine access rights for your IT personnel.

During and after deployment, your staff can remotely install, configure, and manage branch networks using the cloud. From the security of the NOC, your network personnel can perform definition, testing, and staging, and then deploy new locations when business is ready.

If you choose a comprehensive solution such as Nodegrid with ZPE Cloud, you can get secure access that’s more flexible. ZPE’s solution allows you to go without a VPN, and instead lets you securely connect via browser window or mobile app. You don’t have to be tethered to specific gateways or portals — simply gain access to your network from any device.

Perform Routine (and Non-Routine) Maintenance

With branch deployments, a cloud-based management platform simplifies maintenance across the board. Even if you’re using a comprehensive out-of-band solution, you might still be limited to performing routine tasks on-site. These can include installing patches, adjusting traffic settings, and making policy and configuration changes to keep your network optimized. And for non-routine tasks, such as troubleshooting outages or securing backdoor vulnerabilities, time-consuming work is needed at the physical location.

But with the cloud, you can work remotely to keep your infrastructure working properly. With a secure and isolated out-of-band connection, the cloud allows you to perform all your routine tasks off-site. You can reset passwords, update firmware, schedule maintenance intervals, and roll out configuration changes to locations no matter how isolated they are.

When you need to perform critical recovery and repair activities, you can also use the cloud. Troubleshoot remotely and deploy scripts for network health monitoring and self healing. With proper testing and preparation, the cloud allows you to streamline your maintenance operations for tasks large and small.

Discover How Nodegrid and ZPE Cloud Can Help

For out-of-band management of branch deployments, Nodegrid and ZPE Cloud deliver a secure, flexible solution. ZPE uses industry-leading protocols to connect your staff to remote locations. You can maintain branch networks with in-depth, SD-Branch visibility, and use session- and screen-sharing to collaborate in real time. ZPE Cloud supports zero touch provisioning and automation, so you can deploy and manage every branch with more efficiency. Read the complete tech brief to see how the cloud improves your network edge capabilities

Download the Tech Brief

Understanding SD-Branch

by | Jun 3, 2020 | SD-Branch

This 90-second video explains how you can remotely take full control of your network with 360-degree visibility to all your devices.

Learn how ZPE System’s Nodegrid appliances and vendor-neutral management software extends beyond your data center with a solution that lets you remotely manage servers, routers, firewalls, power, and more from one console.

  • Imagine the time savings when you no longer have to configure, update, manage and secure multiple vendor-specific devices.
  • Benefit from failover connectivity that keeps your network running for a fraction of what one hour of downtime costs.
  • Locks out potential back-door security threats while letting you deploying branches in minutes instead of days.

    • Learn how to manage your network better than ever before.  Protect your bottom line and your reputation.

    3 Ways the Cloud Improves Out-Of-Band Management at the Branch

    by | May 20, 2020 | Out of Band Management, SD-Branch

     

    3 Ways the Cloud Improves Out-Of-Band Management at the Branch

    For decades, out-of-band management (OOB) has been supporting business continuity needs for organizations of all sizes. It’s a crucial tool for deploying new locations, setting traffic rules, optimizing connectivity, and so much more. OOB offers an exclusive path to your network so you can control your infrastructure without relying on production networks.

    But modern technology advancements have allowed the scope of networking to expand well beyond the data center. This means that the enterprise infrastructure is more distributed than ever, with branch locations throughout the globe. One problem that organizations face is how to manage such a widely distributed network.

    This is where the cloud comes in. Not only does it provide better OOB in data center environments, but also for managing your entire network, even at the branch level.

    Here’s How the Cloud Delivers Better Out-Of-Band Management at the Branch:

    Deploy Faster and More Secure

    The cloud accommodates zero touch provisioning (ZTP), which essentially offers scaling with little or no human intervention. Instead of shipping preconfigured devices that require manual setup and extensive user input, you can ship plain-vanilla devices that can be automatically configured. Not only does this keep you safe from potential security threats (as unconfigured devices don’t contain any data to be stolen), but also allows you to have plug-n-play simplicity when scaling. Just connect your devices to the network, and the cloud does the rest.

    Get a Full Network View

    A cloud-based environment can provide a 360-degree view of your network. This can include even your most remote branch locations. Aside from offering more convenient scaling, the cloud gives you in-depth visibility of devices connected to your network, even if they’re across the globe. If you implement a robust SD-Branch solution as well, you can also see the activity inside each branch — including for connected IoT devices, cameras, laptops, and others.

    Take More Control

    On top of faster, more secure scaling and in-depth branch network visibility, the cloud provides remote access to your out-of-band management path. Once you’ve successfully provisioned and deployed a new location, you can use the cloud for maintenance, troubleshooting, and management. You can adjust access policies, tailor QoS settings, block specific domains, and much more, all from the safety of your network operations center (NOC). Additionally, cellular connectivity can provide you with reliable backup to your OOB network, so you can manage your infrastructure even during an outage.

    Vendor-neutral console for Out-of-Band Management in the Cloud

    Use Nodegrid With ZPE Cloud

    Nodegrid’s consolidated devices give you complete control of your network, with out-of-band capabilities you’ve never seen before. One of Nodegrid’s biggest strengths is that it offers all of these cloud benefits using ZPE Cloud.

    Deploy quickly with zero touch provisioning, and manage all of your devices with the help of a strong cloud platform. The reliability of 4G/LTE cellular failover keeps your business running, and an innovative ‘Reset’ button lets you reconnect devices to ZPE Cloud without hassle.

    Read the full tech brief if you want to explore more benefits of using the cloud with your out-of-band management strategy.

    Download the Tech Brief