Enterasys extends benefits of secure networks to multi-vendor infrastructures

Enterasys Networks, a global provider of secure networks for enterprise customers, has announced the immediate availability of industry-first functionality for its Matrix N-Series platform of multi-layer switches.

Enterasys brings the benefits of secure networks to multi-vendor legacy networks that lack state-of-the-art security capabilities. This new extended capability for Enterasys` role-based, policy-driven security architecture helps protect customers against worms, viruses, or other malicious attacks on the network, safeguarding critical information assets and ensuring business continuity.

The new functionality enables the identification, authentication and management of individual users, applications or devices regardless of:

* Network equipment: The N-Series delivers powerful security capabilities on networks with heterogeneous legacy switches that lack any security, or provide minimal or overly complex security features.

* Location/network entry point: Including wireless access points, IP phones or server farms.

* Port-sharing by multiple users/applications.

The newest release of Enterasys` most successful role-based, policy hardware/software architecture provides total network visibility, enabling customers to significantly increase security, and streamline management, while fully leveraging existing infrastructure investments.

"Our worldwide customers are rapidly adopting Enterasys Secure Networks solutions," said John Roese, chief technical officer, Enterasys Networks. "They have been asking us to help them extend our granular security capabilities to less secure switches from a variety of other manufacturers. To meet this growing need, we have developed a policy-based solution that provides a high level of security within multi-vendor environments. By placing an Enterasys switch at the distribution layer, existing customers with heterogeneous edge deployments, and new customers, can significantly enhance their security at the user level without the cost and complexity of a fork-lift network upgrade."

Enterasys` Secure Networks approach is uniquely identity-driven and network-wide, enabling dynamic enforcement of network and security policies-based on users, applications or organisational priorities-regardless of location. To accomplish this, Secure Networks combines Enterasys` innovative flow-based switching architecture with advanced security and management software to centralise and automate control of the entire network structure. Forming the foundation of Secure Networks is the company`s policy-based Access Control software that provides granular control over every user and every port across an entire enterprise network. Unlike competitive solutions, security is built into the fabric of the network as opposed to the "bolted on" approach of security appliances.

This new solution is a milestone in the networking industry as it enables Enterasys to extend this built-in security into heterogeneous network infrastructures.

Enterasys this week also will announce the availability of its NetSight Atlas Automated Security Manager (ASM), a key component of Enterasys` Dynamic Intrusion Response solution. The solution drives real-time response down to the individual user in addressing worms, viruses, zero-day attacks, and internal network misuse and abuse.

Internal network threats can be as damaging, if not more so, than external attacks. This is exacerbated by the fact that in 2003, worms that once took several days to traverse the globe now spread to more than 300 000 systems in less than 15 minutes. Once inside the network, the challenges of isolating threats or attacks down to the user are daunting, and can cost organisations hours or days of downtime, and millions of dollars in lost business.

"With the majority of today`s security breaches coming from within an enterprise, truly effective security requires a highly granular level of control over network traffic flows and users," said Zeus Kerravala, vice-president of enterprise infrastructure at The Yankee Group. "In contrast to ACLs and VLANs, which have traditionally been used to manage policy and secure access at the physical port level, the Matrix N-Series multi-user policy and authentication capabilities reach beyond the port to the actual users-even in heterogeneous network environments."

Matrix N-Series: Unmatched price/performance, flexibility and control

The Matrix N-Series platform of modular, multi-layer switches delivers breakthrough performance levels, a full suite of advanced features and a low entry cost, enabling enterprise customers to use their networks to increase productivity and efficiency while controlling operational costs. The Matrix N-Series offers extensive enterprise-wide management and a unique, high-availability design that delivers superior levels of scalability, performance and network availability. In addition to the unique multi-user policy and multi-user authentication features announced today, the Matrix N-Series now also enables:

* VLAN-to-policy mapping: For enterprises with extensive deployments of virtual LANs for controlling access, the Matrix N-Series reduces complexity and enables more flexible management of VLANs. In contrast to the limited options and manual process of controlling VLANs by traditional access control lists (ACLs), the Matrix N-Series enables VLANs to be controlled by granular policies that can be rapidly implemented network-wide against an attack and more easily adapted to meet organisational needs.

* Flow set-up throttling: As traffic spikes are indicative of many security attacks, the Matrix-N Series enables enterprises to set thresholds at which point alarms go off or specific actions automatically occur.

Enterasys` unique ability to embed security in the network fabric lies in its heritage of networking innovation. Competing products partition broad groups of users based on general behaviours, and apply management parameters-including access control and security-to all users based on their group or VLAN. All of Enterasys` products benefit from an inherent networking intelligence that recognises and implements management based on individual user/application traffic flows, enabling Enterasys to affect the network via policies that can be targeted on a per-user basis. It is this level of control that delivers the Secure Networks difference.

The new functionality for the Matrix N-Series is shipping now. For more Information, visit www.enterasys.com/switching.