Business Driven Networks
Aligning infrastructure to business needs
Ever wished your network could do more? Be more tailored to your specific user and application needs?
Automation of a range of network functions can save you time and free up staff for more productive and innovative tasks. Data Integrations approach makes use of the variety of scripting tools and XML interfaces available with the latest switches.
Scripted automation is simple both to create and maintain and allows the network to respond automatically to a range of triggers like time of day, or events on the LAN, without the need for constant human intervention.
This is an exciting area for Data Integration and our customers. Our staff combine their network knowledge with coding skills to work with our product partners and customers to deliver automation projects.
Here are some examples of how scripted automation could help in your business:
IP Telephony provisioning
We can use an LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) exchange message to trigger a script that provisions an IP phones VLAN ID, QoS, IP Gateway. The phone then only needs to boot once, straight into the right VLAN with all its settings, and just needs to get its IP address from the DHCP server. The result is that booting a phone no longer leaves security holes in your network.
Edge port protection
Accidental connections that create loops can cause havoc on your network. Scripted automation which can detect these events and take action to block the affected ports, means that you can protect your network without complicating your spanning tree configuration.
Post-admission control
Automation provides you with the flexibility to change a users access rights, bandwidth or available applications based upon where they are in the network. For example, should a user be allowed to stream video on the wireless network? You might want to stop most people from doing this in order to conserve wireless bandwidth, but you may want to make exceptions for senior executives. Automated configuration changes will allow that granularity of policy.
Green networking
The notion of turning off Power over Ethernet (PoE) and putting servers into energy saving mode based on time of day has been around for a while, but what if you want to work late or you get called into the office in the small hours in an emergency? Scripted automation can dynamically turn down all ports that have no link (i.e. the endpoint is powered off). For ports that do have an active link, we can query Active Directory to see if the user on a particular port is actually logged in, and if not; turn the port down. You save money on power consumption, and its better for the environment.
Disaster recovery
Using scripted automation, a dark Disaster Recovery (DR) room can be kept idle until a core failure triggers a script to activate it. The instant the disaster strikes the DR site is up and working, but when it is not needed it is dynamically put to bed.
These are just a few ideas that are possible today with the new automation tools. Right now very few networks are exploiting the advanced features of the infrastructure to the full, but those that do have achieved fantastic returns on the investment. In times when many IT departments are being asked to do more with fewer resources, automation could play a key role in helping to run your infrastructure more efficiently.
If you would like to talk to Data Integration about how any of these ideas could help you, contact your Account Manager, call us on 0844 561 0071 or email us at info@dataintegration.com.
