Network configuration management: an innovative, additional layer of network security - Storage Networking

Computer Technology Review, Dec, 2003 by David Schrodel

* Controls expenses by identifying resources to reallocate resulting in 20% reduction in unnecessary or redundant bandwidth growth

* Provides precise predictions through 30 second polling

* Saves time with automated procurement planning and budgeting

While intrusion detection systems, firewalls and other solutions play a critical role in securing a network, configuration management solutions deliver added functionality that further enhances their effectiveness. Omni Consulting Group recently conducted a survey where 3,000 U.S. business executives said gaps in network security cost their companies 5.7% of revenue on an annual basis. Organizations that leverage configuration management solutions to further reduce security gaps not only save money but also contribute dollars to the bottom line.

Configuration Management            Benefit
Security Enhancements

A systematic method for designing,  * Maximizes return on network
deploying and managing change to      investment by 20% asset recovery
network configurations              * Reduces total cost of ownership by
Real-time, network connected asset    25%
discovery, configuration control,   * Reduces mean time to repair by 20%
and knowledge mining                * Improves network configuration
A secure, automated and auditable     accuracy through proactive
approach to change management         verification and validation
                                    * Manages and improves change
                                      control

Responsive capacity forecasting     * Controls expenses by identifying
Granular, insightful, and             resources to reallocate resulting
proactive resource utilization        in 20% reduction in unnecessary or
analysis and reporting                redundant bandwidth growth
                                    * Provides precise predictions
                                      through 30 second polling
                                    * Saves time with automated
                                      procurement planning and budgeting

Figure 2

RELATED ARTICLE: Network Configuration Management Solutions Patch Cisco IPv4 Vulnerability

This summer, Cisco announced an IPv4 vulnerability, which made routers susceptible to denial-of-service attacks. When attacked, the router and the network would go down. To avoid this from happening, IT professionals were left with the task of manually reconfiguring and updating Access Control Lists (ACLs) on hundreds if not thousands of routers across a network.

Using network configuration management solutions, IT professionals were able to deploy new ACLs and update the IOS system in minutes, not days or weeks. Additionally, when the security breach occurred, network configuration management solutions armed IT professionals with an audit trail of changes that were made and instantly rolled back to the previous device configuration.

David Schrodel is chief technology officer at Voyence, Inc. (Richardson, TX)

www.voyence.com