Essant Network Assurance
The performance capabilities of a mission critical network are fundamental to both the successful completion of daily operations and the achievement of corporate strategic objectives.Essant has extensive experience in deploying, managing and monitoring complex mission critical networks. Our Network Discovery Audit and Proactive Network Healthcheck services are designed for businesses that want to improve network performance, availability and productivity based on a true understanding of the activity and vulnerability of their corporate network.
The Network Discovery Audit uses a set of automated tools to provide an overiew of the current state of your network infrastructure, while the Proactive Network Healthcheck is a much more in depth piece of work that involves detail assesment of every aspect of your network and results in a documented 'Get Well' programme that can be implemented by Essant, your own Network Team, or a third party. Ultimately what we are providing is stability within your network infrastructure and conformance to best practice, whether for internal purposes or external regulatory compliance.
Essant is qualified by Cisco to provide the Network Discovery Audit and to produce the subsequent Inventory Profile Report (IPR). Network Discovery Audit is a process used to discover, inventory, profile and then report on the target network. The IPR provides detailed information regarding the number and types of Cisco and non-Cisco equipment found on the network including serial numbers, EoX lifecycle status of hardware and software as well as Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) information for specific IOS versions.
Process. The discovery, inventory and profiling takes place on the customer network following these steps:
Step 1: A PC running Cisco Network Collector (CNC) is connected to the network and network devices.
Step 2: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used to inventory each device. That responds to the discovery probes.
Step 3: The information is gathered then encrypted and using SSL posted to the Cisco Discovery Dashboard where the IPR is generated.
Report. The IPR describes the number and types of devices on the network, including serial numbers, and lifecycle status of hardware and software. Essant presents the IPR findings , which come in: Word, Excel and Powerpoint covering: IOS devices, CatOS devices, Other Devices and Executive Summary, to the customer identifying risks that must be addressed immediately and recommending migrations that should occur in the future to replace outdated equipment.
The IPR includes valuable information that can be used for budget planning and network risk mitigation. Essant offer a range of subsequent services that can help you scale your network remediation efforts and determine a course of action. It is important to note that this service DOES NOT gather, or look at, the configuration of any of the devices on the target network, this level of depth is provided in the Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck.
Process. The discovery, inventory and profiling takes place on the customer network following these steps:
Step 1: A PC running Cisco Network Collector (CNC) is connected to the network and network devices.
Step 2: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used to inventory each device. That responds to the discovery probes.
Step 3: The information is gathered then encrypted and using SSL posted to the Cisco Discovery Dashboard where the IPR is generated.
Report. The IPR describes the number and types of devices on the network, including serial numbers, and lifecycle status of hardware and software. Essant presents the IPR findings , which come in: Word, Excel and Powerpoint covering: IOS devices, CatOS devices, Other Devices and Executive Summary, to the customer identifying risks that must be addressed immediately and recommending migrations that should occur in the future to replace outdated equipment.
The IPR includes valuable information that can be used for budget planning and network risk mitigation. Essant offer a range of subsequent services that can help you scale your network remediation efforts and determine a course of action. It is important to note that this service DOES NOT gather, or look at, the configuration of any of the devices on the target network, this level of depth is provided in the Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck.
As networks evolve they may become exposed to many different types of risk. New features, systems and services may be deployed. Cumulative changes, such as device upgrades, personnel changes and security practice amendments are commonplace. Meanwhile protocols, technologies and their means of implementation are constantly improved.
Ideally nothing will fail on a network, but of course it does – regularly. Links between sites will fail, power failures will occur, equipment could overheat. The network design caters for these potential failures by (mainly) duplicating critical items, and configuring them such that these duplicates will take over when things fail. More than half of the resulting configuration is there for these backup options, and therefore inherently complex.
The result of configuration inconsistencies is that although the network may appear stable under normal conditions, it may not actually work under failure conditions. Backup nodes may not take up the primary role when required to do so, and traffic may not be diverted around a link failure.
In such a fast-changing environment, the Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck acts as a check and balance, providing you with an in-depth analysis of the health of your network, its vulnerabilities and its suitability to meet organisational objectives. This proactive approach ensures ongoing stability within your network infrastructure and conformance to best practice, whether for internal purposes or external regulatory compliance.
Benefits:
Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck service provides a framework methodology which focuses on all aspects of network optimisation and provides the following business benefits:
Improved Network Availability - By ensuring redundancy and by reviewing device configurations, the service identifies problems before an outage occurs.
Service Description:
The output of the Healthcheck generates a comprehensive report and a set of Compliance Tables, addressing Physical Structure, Network Structure and Device Compliance. These tables provide a simple, high-level view which is colour-coded to allow rapid identification of areas requiring attention. The resulting assessment will provide the basis of an immediate 'Get Well' programme, where required, as well as a framework methodology for optimising the network in the future.
Based around a phased approach of; preparation, information gathering, analysis, recommendation and feedback, the health check delivers a bespoke report on all aspects of network optimisation comprising of the following phases.
Phase 1: Discovery Workshop
Our engineers work with all major stakeholders to identify operational and technical objectives, prior to commencing the Proactive Network Healthcheck, typically this is done as an onsite workshop, a pre-requisite for which is that all relevant personnel should be available, briefed and have all current documentation available with an appropriate Non Disclosure Agreement(NDA) being in place.
Phase 2: Onsite Assessment & Configuration Gathering
Onsite assessment of the network Physical Structure will take place at the relevant locations, taking into account the following areas:
Assessment of the Network Structure, findings will include reports on:
Configuration gathering of all devices will be done and may include the use of Essant's software toolset to assist in this process, following appropriate customer authorisation.
Phase 3: Best Practice Assessment:
Assess device configurations, Physical Structure and Network Structure against Essant's Best Practice Criteria for Compliance, Partial-Compliance, Non-Compliance. Essant's Best Practice Criteria are based on vendor published information, recognised third party experts and the wealth of experience our engineers have built up over many years in the industry. This phase will take place off site.
Phase 4: Healthcheck Findings Presentation
Post Healthcheck workshop with all major stakeholders to present and explain the Healthcheck findings, answer questions and provide advice with a view to putting in place a 'Get Well' plan that can be implemented by the Client, Essant or another suitable third party. This phase will take place at the clients location and will require that all major stakeholders are available for the duration of workshop.
Ideally nothing will fail on a network, but of course it does – regularly. Links between sites will fail, power failures will occur, equipment could overheat. The network design caters for these potential failures by (mainly) duplicating critical items, and configuring them such that these duplicates will take over when things fail. More than half of the resulting configuration is there for these backup options, and therefore inherently complex.
The result of configuration inconsistencies is that although the network may appear stable under normal conditions, it may not actually work under failure conditions. Backup nodes may not take up the primary role when required to do so, and traffic may not be diverted around a link failure.
In such a fast-changing environment, the Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck acts as a check and balance, providing you with an in-depth analysis of the health of your network, its vulnerabilities and its suitability to meet organisational objectives. This proactive approach ensures ongoing stability within your network infrastructure and conformance to best practice, whether for internal purposes or external regulatory compliance.
Benefits:
Essant Proactive Network Healthcheck service provides a framework methodology which focuses on all aspects of network optimisation and provides the following business benefits:
Improved Network Availability - By ensuring redundancy and by reviewing device configurations, the service identifies problems before an outage occurs.
- Industry & Regulatory Compliance - The output from the Healthcheck provides an independent assessment of your network's capability and conformity to industry best-practice.
- Reduced Costs - As a thorough understanding of the network is obtained; maintenance contracts can be reviewed, internal resource can be aligned to requirements, and risk of network downtime and its associated costs can be minimised.
- Improved Knowledge - The insight gained during the process and documents created will augment & improve the capability and knowledge of your staff.
- New Service Readiness - For clients looking to deploy new networked services such as Voice and Video over IP this optional module assesses the networks readiness to deliver these services.
- Risk Mitigation - The health check is recommended as an annual service to help identify the potential for downtime before failure conditions prevail. It complements existing 'break fix' hardware maintenance contracts by providing an additional layer of intelligence.
Service Description:
The output of the Healthcheck generates a comprehensive report and a set of Compliance Tables, addressing Physical Structure, Network Structure and Device Compliance. These tables provide a simple, high-level view which is colour-coded to allow rapid identification of areas requiring attention. The resulting assessment will provide the basis of an immediate 'Get Well' programme, where required, as well as a framework methodology for optimising the network in the future.
Based around a phased approach of; preparation, information gathering, analysis, recommendation and feedback, the health check delivers a bespoke report on all aspects of network optimisation comprising of the following phases.
Phase 1: Discovery Workshop
Our engineers work with all major stakeholders to identify operational and technical objectives, prior to commencing the Proactive Network Healthcheck, typically this is done as an onsite workshop, a pre-requisite for which is that all relevant personnel should be available, briefed and have all current documentation available with an appropriate Non Disclosure Agreement(NDA) being in place.
Phase 2: Onsite Assessment & Configuration Gathering
Onsite assessment of the network Physical Structure will take place at the relevant locations, taking into account the following areas:
- Computer Room Security
- Cabinet & Device Naming
- Power distribution
- Environmental Issues
- Cleanliness & Tidiness
- Cabinet & Equipment Access
Assessment of the Network Structure, findings will include reports on:
- General Configuration Baseline
- Network Diagrams
- Change & Configuration Control
- IP Addressing Scheme
- Resilience
- Security Baseline
- Support Documentation
- VLAN Configuration & Structure
- Device Access
- Routing Protocols
Configuration gathering of all devices will be done and may include the use of Essant's software toolset to assist in this process, following appropriate customer authorisation.
Phase 3: Best Practice Assessment:
Phase 4: Healthcheck Findings Presentation
Post Healthcheck workshop with all major stakeholders to present and explain the Healthcheck findings, answer questions and provide advice with a view to putting in place a 'Get Well' plan that can be implemented by the Client, Essant or another suitable third party. This phase will take place at the clients location and will require that all major stakeholders are available for the duration of workshop.
Pricing and Agreement:
Pricing of both the Network Discovery Audit and the Proactive Network Healthcheck is dependant on the number and type of network devices and the number of physical locations - a full proposal will be provided prior to work commencing. All work carried out is under Essant's Consultancy Tems and Conditions, a copy of which can be provided on request. Contact our sales team for more for more information and a quotation.
