Zeus Kerravala
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Zeus Kerravala
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The NFL knows a lot about deploying high-capacity WiFi networks
Everyone watching Super Bowl 2020 witnessed the excitement that filled Hard Rock Stadium, as the Kansas City Chiefs became this year’s champions. (I was cheering hard for the 49ers but want to offer hearty congratulations to the new champs.) What wasn’t visible to the public—yet was omnipresent throughout the venue—was Wi-Fi connectivity that gave fans an enhanced experience during the game.Whether it’s in a hospital, an office building, a university auditorium or a stadium, Wi-Fi scale matters. In hospitals, gameday is every day, and healthcare wireless networks play a vital role. Stadiums don’t always have gameday, but when they do, the WiFi has to work without a glitch.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 firewall features IT pros should know about but probably don’t
Firewalls continuously evolve to remain a staple of network security by incorporating functionality of standalone devices, embracing network-architecture changes, and integrating outside data sources to add intelligence to the decisions they make – a daunting wealth of possibilities that is difficult to keep track of.Because of this richness of features, next-generation firewalls are difficult to master fully, and important capabilities sometimes can be, and in practice are, overlooked.Here is a shortlist of new features IT pros should be aware of.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 firewall features IT pros should know about but probably don’t
Firewalls continuously evolve to remain a staple of network security by incorporating functionality of standalone devices, embracing network-architecture changes, and integrating outside data sources to add intelligence to the decisions they make – a daunting wealth of possibilities that is difficult to keep track of.Because of this richness of features, next-generation firewalls are difficult to master fully, and important capabilities sometimes can be, and in practice are, overlooked.Here is a shortlist of new features IT pros should be aware of.To read this article in full, please click here
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How to deal with the impact of digital transformation on networks
Digital transformation has increased the importance of the network, particularly the edge, where customers, employees, cloud applications and IoT devices connect to the enterprise. The legacy static and non-differentiated network edge of years past is no longer sufficient for many reasons, so as companies embark on digital-transformation plans, their networks must evolve.Networking pros should be looking at, among other things, improving security and embracing software-defined networking (SDN) that supports propagating changes quickly across the network in order to accommodate the many challenges digital transformation creates.To read this article in full, please click here
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How to deal with the impact of digital transformation on networks
Digital transformation has increased the importance of the network, particularly the edge, where customers, employees, cloud applications and IoT devices connect to the enterprise. The legacy static and non-differentiated network edge of years past is no longer sufficient for many reasons, so as companies embark on digital-transformation plans, their networks must evolve.Networking pros should be looking at, among other things, improving security and embracing software-defined networking (SDN) that supports propagating changes quickly across the network in order to accommodate the many challenges digital transformation creates.To read this article in full, please click here
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7 considerations when buying network-automation tools
The concept of network automation has been around for as long as there have been networks, and until now the uptake has been slow for a number of reasons including resistance from network engineers. But now forces are coming together to create a perfect storm of sorts, driving a need for network automation tools.One factor is that more and more network teams are starting to feel the pain of working in the fast-paced digital world where doing things the old way simply does not work. The manual, box-by-box, method of configuring and updating routers and switches through a command-line interface (CLI) is too slow and error prone. [Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Also, the rise of software-defined networks (SDN), including software-defined WANs (SD-WAN), has enabled network-automation tools to evolve from operationally focused point products that address things like change management and configuration into policy and orchestration tools.To read this article in full, please click here
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Passive optical networking: Its day is dawning
The concept of using passive optical LANs in enterprise campuses has been around for years, but hasn’t taken off taken off because most businesses consider all-fiber networks to be overkill for their needs. I’ve followed this market for the better part of two decades, and now I believe we’re on the cusp of seeing POL go mainstream, starting in certain verticals.The primary driver of change from copper to optical is that the demands on the network have evolved. Every company now considers its network to be business critical where just a few years ago, it was considered best effort in nature. Downtime or a congested network meant inconvenienced users, but today they mean the business is likely losing big money.To read this article in full, please click here
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Passive optical LAN: Its day is dawning
The concept of using passive optical LANs in enterprise campuses has been around for years, but hasn’t taken off because most businesses consider all-fiber networks to be overkill for their needs. I’ve followed this market for the better part of two decades, and now I believe we’re on the cusp of seeing POL go mainstream, starting in certain verticals.The primary driver of change from copper to optical is that the demands on the network have evolved. Every company now considers its network to be business critical where just a few years ago, it was considered best effort in nature. Downtime or a congested network meant inconvenienced users, but today they mean the business is likely losing big money.To read this article in full, please click here
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How cloud providers’ performance differs
Not all public cloud service providers are the same when it comes to network performance.Each one’s connectivity approach varies, which causes geographical discrepancies in network performance and predictability. As businesses consider moving to the cloud, especially software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WAN) and multi-cloud, it’s important to understand what each public cloud service provider brings to the table and how they compare.To read this article in full, please click here
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Fortinet CEO: Network and security technologies give rise to security-driven networking
The network and security industries both continue to evolve at a rate never seen before. Historically, security and network operation teams have worked in parallel with one another, sometimes being at odds with each other's goals.However, that is changing as businesses rely on their networks to operate. It’s fair to say that today, for many companies, the network is the business. As this happens, network and security technologies need to be more closely aligned giving rise to the concept of security-driven networking.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] In this post, ZK Research had a chance to sit down with the co-founder and CEO of Fortinet Ken Xie to discuss the future of networking and security. To read this article in full, please click here
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Fortinet CEO: Network and security technologies give rise to security-driven networking
The network and security industries both continue to evolve at a rate never seen before. Historically, security and network operation teams have worked in parallel with one another, sometimes being at odds with each other's goals.However, that is changing as businesses rely on their networks to operate. It’s fair to say that today, for many companies, the network is the business. As this happens, network and security technologies need to be more closely aligned giving rise to the concept of security-driven networking.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] In this post, ZK Research had a chance to sit down with the co-founder and CEO of Fortinet Ken Xie to discuss the future of networking and security. To read this article in full, please click here
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How SD-WAN is evolving into Secure Access Service Edge
SASE, pronounced "sassy," stands for secure access service edge, and it's being positioned by Gartner as the next big thing in enterprise networking. The technology category, which Gartner and other network experts first introduced earlier this year, converges the WAN edge and network security into a cloud-based, as-a-service delivery model. According to Gartner, the convergence is driven by customer demands for simplicity, scalability, flexibility, low latency, and pervasive security.SASE brings together security and networking A SASE implementation requires a comprehensive technology portfolio that only a few vendors can currently deliver. The technology is still in its infancy, with less than 1% adoption. There are a handful of existing SD-WAN providers, including Cato Networks, Juniper, Fortinet and Versa, that are expected to compete in the emerging SASE market. There will be other SD-WAN vendors jumping on this wagon, and the industry is likely to see another wave of startups. To read this article in full, please click here
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How SD-WAN is evolving into Secure Access Service Edge
SASE, pronounced "sassy," stands for secure access service edge, and it's being positioned by Gartner as the next big thing in enterprise networking. The technology category, which Gartner and other network experts first introduced earlier this year, converges the WAN edge and network security into a cloud-based, as-a-service delivery model. According to Gartner, the convergence is driven by customer demands for simplicity, scalability, flexibility, low latency, and pervasive security.SASE brings together security and networking A SASE implementation requires a comprehensive technology portfolio that only a few vendors can currently deliver. The technology is still in its infancy, with less than 1% adoption. There are a handful of existing SD-WAN providers, including Cato Networks, Juniper, Fortinet and Versa, that are expected to compete in the emerging SASE market. There will be other SD-WAN vendors jumping on this wagon, and the industry is likely to see another wave of startups. To read this article in full, please click here
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Pennsylvania school district tackles network modernization
Success in business and education today starts with infrastructure modernization. In fact, my research has found that digitally-forward organizations spend more than twice what their non-digital counterparts spend on evolving their IT infrastructure. However, most of the focus from IT has been on upgrading the application and compute infrastructure with little thought given to a critical ingredient – the network. Organizations can only be as agile as the least agile component of their infrastructure, and for most companies, that’s the network.Manual processes plague network reliability Legacy networks have outlived their useful life. The existing three+ tier architecture was designed for an era when network traffic was considered “best-effort,” where there was no way to guarantee performance or reserve bandwidth, and delivered non-mission-critical applications. Employees and educators ran applications locally, and the majority of critical data resided on workstations.To read this article in full, please click here
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3 strategies to simplify complex networks
As the cloud era meets the demands of digital transformation, networks must change. That means for enterprises, they must become simpler, said Juniper CEO Rami Rahim, speaking at the company's annual industry analyst conference last week.The past five years has seen more innovation in networking than in the previous 30. Things such as SD-WAN, multi-cloud, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, 400 Gig, and edge computing are on the near-term horizon for almost every company. While all of those technologies have enabled the network to do so much more than ever before, their complexity has also risen.To read this article in full, please click here
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To secure industrial IoT, use segmentation instead of firewalls
The internet of things (IoT) has been top of mind for network and security professionals for the better part of the past five years. This has been particularly true for the area of industrial IoT (IIoT). Connected industrial devices are nothing new, but most IT people aren’t familiar with them because they have been managed by operational technology (OT) teams. More and more, though, business leaders want to bring OT and IT together to drive better insights from the combined data set.While there are many advantages to merging IT and OT and having IIoT fall under IT ownership, it has a profound impact on the cybersecurity team because it introduces several new security threats. Each connected endpoint, if breached, creates a backdoor into the other systems.To read this article in full, please click here
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To secure industrial IoT, use segmentation instead of firewalls
The internet of things (IoT) has been top of mind for network and security professionals for the better part of the past five years. This has been particularly true for the area of industrial IoT (IIoT). Connected industrial devices are nothing new, but most IT people aren’t familiar with them because they have been managed by operational technology (OT) teams. More and more, though, business leaders want to bring OT and IT together to drive better insights from the combined data set.While there are many advantages to merging IT and OT and having IIoT fall under IT ownership, it has a profound impact on the cybersecurity team because it introduces several new security threats. Each connected endpoint, if breached, creates a backdoor into the other systems.To read this article in full, please click here
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How SD-Branch addresses today’s network security concerns
Secure software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) has become one of the hottest new technologies, with some reports claiming that 85% of companies are actively considering SD-WAN to improve cloud-based application performance, replace expensive and inflexible fixed WAN connections, and increase security.But now the industry is shifting to software-defined branch (SD-Branch), which is broader than SD-WAN but introduced several new things for organizations to consider, including better security for new digital technologies. To understand what's required in this new solution set, I recently sat down with John Maddison, Fortinet’s executive vice president of products and solutions.To read this article in full, please click here
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How SD-Branch addresses today’s network security concerns
Secure software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) has become one of the hottest new technologies, with some reports claiming that 85% of companies are actively considering SD-WAN to improve cloud-based application performance, replace expensive and inflexible fixed WAN connections, and increase security.But now the industry is shifting to software-defined branch (SD-Branch), which is broader than SD-WAN but introduced several new things for organizations to consider, including better security for new digital technologies. To understand what's required in this new solution set, I recently sat down with John Maddison, Fortinet’s executive vice president of products and solutions.To read this article in full, please click here
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Mist’s AI-driven virtual assistant speeds up network troublshooting
The use of digital or virtual assistants and chatbots has picked up momentum with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). These automated assistants have been around for years, but they haven't been all that useful, as they required a significant amount of programming to look for certain keywords and then the responses were based on logical guesses. The infusion of AI, however, has made these systems much smarter and now natural language queries can be made and responses are in plain English (or other languages).Many businesses have adopted digital assistants and chatbots to improve customer service. For example, Atom Tickets uses conversational AI to enable people to book movie tickets and even dinner with just a short sentence instead of having to go through the rigmarole of going back and forth with discrete commands.To read this article in full, please click here