The Local Area Network (LAN) is one of the most important digital assets your company owns and is the foundation for the applications and services needed to realise the potential of your business. Essant’s LAN solutions create an inherently intelligent integrated network to adapt for your current and future business needs by:

• Providing secure, but unconstrained, connectivity between employees, customers and information
• Delivering quality, real-time applications, such as voice and video, on a converged network platform
• Ensuring access to information and resources from anywhere
• Automating a manageable and self-defending network
• Reducing your operating expenses
• Enables Green Business, IT, and Networking Practices

Essant can help you evolve your network to incorporate new requirements, such as Quality-of-Service (QoS) to prioritise traffic based on its importance (for example to guarantee speech quality), or Power over Ethernet (PoE) to provide power for IP phones. With more and more services becoming integrated into the networking infrastructure traditional switches and routers are evolving into intelligent multi-functional networking devices.
With a wealth of experience in enterprise networking, gained from it’s Service Provider background, Essant can offer a range of services, including vulnerability assessments, network health checks, consultancy, design and deployment. We can also, via the Essant Monitoring and Management Centre (EMMC), provide a range of managed services and remote support services to ensure availability and performance meet your particular requirements. To find out more about Essant’s Services click here.

If you have more than one site you will have a Wide Area Network (WAN). These sites are connected via the WAN that can be made up of point-to-point connections or they can be public connections running a Site-to-Site Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Ultimately you just want your sites connected, Essant’s WAN Solutions take the pain away by ensuring correct routing and security levels are put in place and constantly updated in line with industry and best practices and current security guidelines.

Essant is a 'Hybrid Virtual Network operator'. This capability enables us to seamlessly blend services from a number of major carriers and service providers to create the most appropriate and cost effective solution to meet each customers specific needs via a single service contract. Our consultative approach to how we design, secure and manage WANs enables us to provide our customers with bespoke, high quality solutions.

The unique element Essant offers to the WAN market is the provision of Essant Intelligent Bandwidth (EIB), as an optional element to the Essant Managed WAN, this proprietary technology ensures the efficient use of network resources through a combination of optimisation, shaping and acceleration technologies. To find out more click here.

Business has gone mobile. The number of employees that expect access to network resources to improve productivity has increased significantly over the past few years and the trend shows little sign of slowing anytime soon. Business mobility means consistent access to corporate applications over the right network to the right user at the right time. Delivering this experience requires IT to give careful consideration to how the network is architected. The proliferation of mobile devices, the need to unify multiple access networks and the demand for mobility applications has increased the drain on IT resources. Few IT organisations will see an increase in the resources required to meet these impending mobility demands. Yet, a new approach to architecting the mobility network will simplify the delivery of business mobility without requiring a significant increase in IT resources to get the job done.

To deliver true business mobility, IT must take a practical approach focused on unifying networks, managing the wave of mobile devices, and enabling mobile application development. IT must evolve existing wireless networks to support a variety of new mobility applications. What's more, these applications must be able to extend across multiple networks and scale from small businesses to the very largest enterprises.

To achieve this transition, IT must transform the wireless LAN into a mobility network by creating an open network platform capable of enabling the development of a broad variety of mobility applications designed to improve business agility and competitiveness. Such a platform requires an open interface to allow third parties to source network intelligence in a consistent way without compromising the security or performance of the production network. To achieve this, IT must abstract the services layer from the network layer. This approach allows for the delivery of mobile applications across access networks, including Wi-Fi, Ethernet, cellular, and WiMAX. Furthermore, this allows for the integration of a broader Internet of "things" including passive RFID and sensor networks by bridging control and provisioning of these physical networks.

Collaboration allows organisations to quickly adapt to market changes and build competitive advantage. Essant's Unified Communications Solutions enable high quality secure collaboration across your organisation and beyond, extending to your partners, vendors and customers accelerating decision making and bringing innovation throughout the value chain.

Today's every time, everywhere unified communications systems bring together voice, video, data, and mobile applications to liberate employees from their desktop and improve business agility and profitability. Voice over IP (VoIP), or IP telephony is the first stage in realising these goals, it is also the foundation for more advanced unified communications applications—including Web and video conferencing—that can transform the way you do business.

All businesses strive to save money and increase productivity. In addition we are all becoming increasingly aware of the impact that business travel can have on climate change and are striving for ways to reduce CO2 emissions. TelePresence delivers a unique, "in-person" experience so you can meet people without travel, thus saving time as well as money. You can communicate and collaborate more effectively any time, anywhere, with everyone.

Whether you are interested in using low-cost horizontally-scalable server architectures, large vertically-scalable multi-domain servers, blade servers, thin-client architectures or anything in between, Essant can help you to deliver an integrated infrastructure solution.

Essant have been delivering Unix based platforms for Oracle to the Financial Services Industry, and other sectors that require enterprise class computing, for many years.More recently the advent of Blade Technology, Virtualisation and Unified Computing models have brought additional dimensions, and challenges, to how an organisation may choose to deploy and manage its computing infrastructure.

Essant continue to be at the forefront of this server revolution and whether you choose to deploy your server infrastructure in your own data centre, one of Essant’s hosting centres, or another third party facility the Essant Solutions team can cover every aspect of server technology, including:

Pre-sale: we help our customers to 'size and capacity plan' the optimum solution.

Post-sale: our teams can work with your own personnel to configure, implement and commission the integrated solution.

As IT has become central to core business processes, data centres are taking a central role in the overall success of an organisation. As always, a data centre must excel at the traditional measures of operational excellence including system availability, asset and space utilisation, security, and power/cooling efficiency.

But now, data centres must also support a new set of emerging requirements, including business-to-business relationships, regulatory requirements, a global operating environment, and empowered users. And finally, data centres must be able to adapt quickly and effortlessly to inevitable change.

The Essant Data Centre Switching Portfolio provides a granular cost-effective path to upgrading the capacity of your data centre network and is built on the following common tenants:

• Design flexibility: Modular, rack, and integrated blade switches are optimised for both Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet environments.
• Industry-leading switching capabilities: Layer 2 and 3 functions can help build stable, secure, scalable data centres.
• Investment protection: Adaptability simplifies capacity and capability upgrades.
• Continuous operations: A combination of hardware redundancy and features such as in-service software upgrades and Smart Call Home helps maximise network availability.
• Operational manageability: Integrated management tools simplify operations and accelerate problem resolution.
• Transport flexibility: The broad portfolio of switches eases migration to new technologies.

By aligning your IT people, processes, and technology with your business objectives, the new, virtualised data centre helps you address business challenges. Essant's portfolio of Data Centre Switching Solutions helps transform infrastructure silos into pools of resources that can be dynamically aligned to meet your application and business needs.

Why Virtualise?

The underlying objective of Virtualisation is to to improve utilisation and control, this is achieved by moving duplicated and difficult to manage resources from remote sites onto shared platforms in the data centre. Building a Virtualised Environment will require the implementation of several key technologies, probably from multiple vendors, to support an effective Virtualisation Strategy. The following diagram shows what a fully Virtualised Environment could look like across a complete system architecture, click it to enlarge.


So why would you want to go to all the trouble of building a Virtualised Infrastructure? We believe that there are 5 key reasons for doing so:

• Simplify the management of large estates of servers, PCs and storage platforms.
• Improve the utilisation of IT resources, reduce unnecessary duplication of devices and save on operational costs.
• Control and manage remote offices and mobile workers who create security, management and maintenance issues.
• Consolidate and centralise IT resources using high performance networks and acceleration technologies.
• Reduce the numbers of servers, storage arrays and other system devices with a smaller footprint which will lead to a reduced power requirement, for both powering and cooling, for the Data Centre resulting in both 'green' benefits and costs savings.

What to Virtualise?

Which elements of your systems architecture is it most beneficial to Virtualise? There are too many variables and dependancies to make a general statement, however Virtualisation Technologies are being deployed across all layers of the systems architecture to enable consolidation and sharing of IT resources through a single management interface. The following 5 levels of Virtualisation should help you identify where the 'quick wins' are for your organisation, and Essant's Virtualisation Planning and Analysis Service will provide more information to help you understand and build your business case.

An important note:

As with any emerging technology the Virtualised Infrastructure will be the target for new security threats. It is therefore essential that your security environment and the impact on firewalls, remote access and other security devices is considered at the outset.

The next steps:

Essant's aim is to ensure Virtualisation provides a better return on investment by making sure it is as easy as possible to understand, design and deploy. Woking with Essant will enable you to:

• Identify the best solutions to Virtualise your infrastructure.
• Select the most appropriate vendor technology to work with.
• Choose the best security solution with which to protect the Virtualised Environment.
• Ensure a smooth transition into the Virtualised Environment using Essant's Planning and Analysis Services.

Your data centre infrastructure must evolve rapidly to improve resiliency, increase business responsiveness, and keep up with the growing demands of new applications while reducing overall power consumption. Storage costs are growing faster than server costs, increasing the need for efficient and cost-effective storage area networks. In highly competitive environments that must meet with industry and regulatory compliance for data recovery, 24-hour access to critical information is imperative.

Essant’s Storage Networking Solutions provide:

• Multi-protocol storage networking - Reduces business risk by providing flexibility and options - FC, FICON, FCoE, iSCSI, and FCIP
• Unified OS and Management tools for reduced operational expense - operational simplicity, seamless interoperability, and feature consistency
• Enterprise-class storage connectivity to support significantly higher virtualised workloads - availability, scalability, and performance
• Services-Oriented SANs - to extend "Any Network Service to any Device" regardless of Protocol, Speed, Vendor, or Location
  

Essant’s solutions for storage area networks include:

• Disaster Recovery / Business Continuance - You have instantaneous access to data from multiple tiers, for disaster recovery.
• Virtualisation - IT managers can provision their storage infrastructure.
• Security - Your data is protected when it is at rest and while it is being transported and replicated.
• Consolidation - Storage professionals can consolidate resources by taking advantage of highly scalable, intelligent SAN platforms.
• Data Mobility - A seamless, non-disruptive migration strategy is imperative for deployment flexibility and to support dynamic growing challenges of enterprise.
  

Storage area networks are central to an Infrastructure 3.0 architecture, providing a networking platform that helps IT departments achieve lower total cost of ownership, enhanced resiliency, and greater agility through.

Today's network-based business operations require an integrated security approach to ensure the business is protected, meets regulatory compliance, and mitigates against data leakage.

Essant’s Network Security Solutions include:

Essant’s holistic approach to Network Security ensures that all points on the network are secure providing visibility and control by enforcing business policies and protecting critical assets.

A Remote Access Virtual Private Network (VPN) provides an organisations staff with the access to corporate resources from outside the corporate LAN. When the user connects to the VPN, their machine becomes a part of the corporate network with all services available to them, as if they were at their office desk.

Technically there are two ways to achieve this:

1. The Remote Access IPsec VPN utilises the IPsec protocol and works by installing a VPN client on the end users machines that connects to the VPN device and authenticates the user. he advantage of an IPsec VPN is that the remote user experience is more in tune to that f the office user and networked applications are better supported.

2. A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) VPN utilises a web browser as its client. The user browses to a web page and then authenticates to be able to access web based applications on the inside of the corporate LAN. SSL VPNs benefit from an ease of deployment and also work great with web-based applications.

When configuring any type of VPN, you have to open up access to some corporate resources from the public internet. Therefore implementing this type of technology brings with it risks as well as productivity gains.

Essant offers a Managed Remote Access Service which includes the design, implementation and management of the individual devices that make up the solution taking care of operational and security related updates as well as ensuring solution availability at all times and protection from all known threats.

Work environments are changing dramatically. Organisations have moved from a centralised model to one that is based on distributed sites and a remote workforce, and employees can work anywhere and any time with today's collaboration tools and devices.

Unfortunately, with increased mobility, new communication channels, and diverse services, the risk to proprietary information increases. Essant's Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Solutions provides a comprehensive strategy for preventing confidential and private data loss, including:

• Enforcing content policies to prevent critical data loss at high-risk points
• Encrypting backup tapes or storage devices
• Securing data from other avenues of risk, such as unauthorised physical or network access, malware, or end-user actions
• Recommended practices for preventing data loss, which incorporate people, process, and technology

Data Loss Prevention is a serious issue for companies, as the number of incidents (and the cost to those experiencing them) continues to increase. Whether it’s a malicious attempt, or an inadvertent mistake, data loss can diminish a company’s brand, reduce shareholder value, and damage the company’s goodwill and reputation.

Whether it’s email, instant messaging, webmail, a form on a website, or file transfer, electronic communications exiting the company still go largely uncontrolled and unmonitored on their way to their destinations – with the ever-present potential for confidential information to fall into the wrong hands. Should sensitive information be exposed, it can wreak havoc on the organisation’s bottom line through fines, bad publicity, loss of strategic customers, loss of competitive intelligence and legal action. All avenues of electronic communication need to be policed to prevent intellectual property, financial information, patient information, personal credit card data, and a variety of sensitive information (depending on the business and the industry) from falling into the wrong hands.

Across all key protocols Essant can provide, a high-performance, intelligent DLP solution that is a must-have for today’s organisations.

The Internet has generated tremendous technology advancements for organisations, resulting in improved business efficiencies and productivity gains. Security threats such as viruses and remote attacks have kept pace with the growing adoption of Internet-related technologies. A recent trend is the shift to financially motivated attacks and exploits: The 2009 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey shows that the most expensive computer security incidents were those involving financial fraud.

Increased collaboration and globalisation introduce further security challenges. Mobile users bring their laptops and handheld devices in and out of the office. Remote-access users connect from their homes and from public locations. Business outsourcing requires direct partner access into the internal network. Onsite visitors, vendors, and contractors may need access to the internal network to accomplish their work. Even “in-the-office” workers are subject to threats coming through Internet access, e-mail use, instant messaging, and peer-to-peer (P2P) activities. Web 2.0 applications, social networking technology, and cloud computing all increase the likelihood that sensitive data may no longer reside on a typical company-owned data server only. Traditional security products designed to protect closed environments with well-defined security boundaries are not effective in the new business environment.

Most IT and security departments also face budgetary and personnel resource constraints. Adding to the challenge are the growing complexity and sophistication of new security threats, diverse user communities, mixed infrastructures, and, often, less-than-efficient operations. Organisations must streamline work processes, improve operational efficiency, and reduce security incidents and financial losses to remain competitive.

Enforce your organisation's security policies on all devices seeking network access by deploying Network Admission Control (NAC), this allows only compliant and trusted endpoint devices, such as PCs, servers, and PDAs, onto the network, restricting the access of noncompliant devices, and thereby limiting the potential damage from emerging security threats and risks. NAC gives organisations a powerful, roles-based method of preventing unauthorised access and improving network resiliency. Discover more about Essant's Managed NAC services here.