What are networks that know?

In today`s markets selling networks is becoming much like peddling cars, where everyone can set up a second-hand shop and everyone knows how to change a spark plug. But the reality is that only a few customers ever really get the full capacity out of their networks.

If we put the enterprise under the microscope and business in particular we can surmise that companies not only need the physical network per se, they more importantly need an intelligent network that is able to in many instances, manage itself and protect itself from the onslaught of outside attacks.

It is with this that Enterasys worldwide has swung its stance on the very market in which it operates, networking, to incorporate a new strategy. The strategy itself being `Networks That Know`.

As briefly touched on earlier, your business needs an intelligent network, a smarter solution which is able to use a combination of technologies to allow the end-user to get the most out of the physical infrastructure.

The inner workings of an active network would combine the efforts of context-based and embedded security technologies as well as automated response capabilities. With this the user is then able to manage who is making use of the network both internally and externally as well as expel threats before they occur.

The Enterasys-developed concept and solution is now able to protect the entire enterprise. While many vendors are still deeply focused on protecting the network from the `edge`, we have acknowledged that this approach to the securitisation of potentially your greatest technology asset is just not enough. So what we have done is drive the protection from the edge, through the distribution layer, and into the core of the network.

With this, threats to the enterprise are instantly isolated at the user level where they are started, eliminating the capability of these `security breaches` bringing the whole network down. We also believe it is very important for our own solutions to be able to coexist and potentially even enhance one`s legacy data networking infrastructure and security appliances - regardless of whatever vendor is prevalent in the networking environment at the time.

Through the combination of the aforementioned technologies, and the ability to offer context-based analysis of network traffic, the Enterasys solution and approach allows you to see not only what the problem is, but where it is and what or who was the cause of it.

Through the realisation that while security is the biggest threat to the `networked environment` not many vendors have taken up the challenge to change their own internal focus from one which patches, with Elastoplast, the problem. To one which tackles each and every issue of a network`s vulnerability both internally and externally, from the edge right through to the core.

It is with this that we can now see the culmination of the Enterasys strategy, where for the past couple of years we have invested extensively in building our product and services portfolio to include the elements of through the network security, full physical networking product delivery, and services and support.

With all of these building blocks in place, we are now at the point where we can offer the first solution in the industry which is able to resolve, through some of the most advanced controls, threats across the entire network - either dynamically or on demand.

Hence the new stance - networks that know.