Test Center Daily | InfoWorld Staff » Managing Switches for Policy-Based Networking

April 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Managing Switches for Policy-Based Networking

TAGS: Network policy enforcement

My recent blog post about Lockdown Networks demise seems to have struck a chord. I've heard from a few enterprise users and product vendors as a result, and NetClarity recently disclosed their patented approach for connecting to switches in existing infrastructures.

The point is this: it's not about access control. It's about actually designing an infrastructure that complies with policies that help you protect your infrastructure and key assets to the extent possible.

This takes work. It takes thinking about your network infrastructure, considering possible design changes to enable enforcement, creating the policies that reflect your requirements, and then deploying policy management solutions that enforce the policies.

It's not complex, but it is challenging. It takes a focus on what you want to allow and what you want to deny. Even if you don't deploy a policy enforcement solution, you should be determining what your policies are. Otherwise, you are living in a fantasy world regarding how your network is designed and what is happening on it.

What are your policies? What are you doing to enforce them?

Posted by Stephen Hultquist on April 2, 2008 12:29 PM

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