Small-medium businesses (SMBs) are
often more vulnerable to cyberattacks, due in large part to limited IT
resources in the face of ongoing risks. According to Aruba (an HPE company), as
your company grows, you’ll need more than just antivirus and firewall software
to keep customer and employee data safe. Choosing the right gateway for your
network puts you a step ahead when it comes to keeping your network securely
connected and segmented.
The
right gateway can help prepare your business for expansion by streamlining IT
operations, reducing downtime costs, and keeping your IT team nimble and
strategic. Whether it’s your business network to your ISP’s network, one of
your branch sites to your main office, or your business servers to your wired
and wireless infrastructure, a gateway acts as a singular point of entry and
exit that manages and processes the traffic and data passing through it.
While their core purpose
has remained the same, gateway devices have evolved into highly sophisticated
appliances that enhance network performance, security, and scale. There are
several different gateways and functionalities that growing businesses should
consider adopting:
·
Internet
gateway. If you are
managing a network at a group of medical offices, in manufacturing, or anywhere
that utilises remote services, a backup internet connection is critical for
continuity. In addition to the obvious business-critical functions, network
downtime can be expensive, blocking productivity and forcing your IT staff to
focus on troubleshooting and maintenance instead of strategic services. With
the ability to accept, translate, and process multiple WAN connection types,
internet gateways can effortlessly reroute traffic to a backup line, keeping
vital business functions connected and running during a service outage.
·
Stateful
firewall. As data
packets are sent to the gateway, they must first pass the built-in firewall
which decrypts, authenticates, and inspects data before the gateway decides
whether to block the data or allow it to proceed to its intended destination.
The gateway does this by referring to a defined set of configured rules and
network access policies. The more decisions that need to be made by the
gateway, the more taxing it is on the CPU within the gateway. For this reason,
higher-end devices have a specialised CPU designed for high-efficiency policy
firewall processing and next-generation security services, like intrusion
detection, intrusion prevention, and anti-malware systems.
·
VPN
concentrator. Growing
businesses take advantage of virtual private network (VPN) tunnelling to
encrypt and decrypt point-to-point traffic, connecting branch offices and
remote workers back to the main office. VPN helps protect the business network
against data leaks and unwanted guests as only authenticated users have access
to sensitive data, servers, and services. However, as your business expands,
VPN connection requests on a per-client basis can cause issues and clog the
network. Gateways with a VPN concentrator (VPNC) can streamline and consolidate
secure access, connecting thousands of remote users to a single point without
impacting overall network performance.
·
SD-WAN.
Next-generation
gateways have started to further differentiate between types of traffic and
trusted services based on what that traffic is and where it’s going. These
often come with built-in software-defined WAN architecture (SD-WAN), which
efficiently routes services at different locations and methods of transport and
keeps them connected through the cloud. As a result, SD-WAN helps bypass
unnecessary routing steps to increase bandwidth availability, reliability, and
performance for other devices. A connection request from a client device to a
trusted cloud service like Office 365 or SharePoint, for example, may not need to
be routed back to the main office for processing. Bypassing that step increases
bandwidth availability, reliability, and performance for other devices.
Increasingly,
businesses assess security from a multi-layered point-of-view, considering
areas of vulnerability from perimeter to endpoints, including applications and
data. Below are a few key security functionalities of gateways:
·
Intrusion
detection and prevention — Inspects network traffic for malware or suspicious
activity, and stops them from spreading.
·
Segmentation
and policy enforcement — Protects your network by defining profiles and
automatically enforcing role-based policies to enable just the right amount of
access for users and devices.
·
Web
content filtering — Defends against cyberthreats and enhances internet security
with granular content classification, malicious site, and IP reputation
filters.
·
Built
to scale — Supports up to 2 048 concurrent devices with up to 128K active
firewall sessions, N+1 or NxN redundancy deployments, and hybrid ISP links
through MPLS, Broadband, and LTE.
·
Client
and IoT device visibility — Automates device discovery functions and
classification systems to assist with streamlining the onboarding process.
Choosing the right gateway
Gateways run a substantial
number of connections, inspections, and vital services to support business
continuity. When shopping for gateways, it’s important to consider whether they
will be up to the task. For example, purchasing a low-cost gateway may serve as
a stopgap solution for your midsize business. However, it can often come with
throughput or client device count limits that can be an infrastructure
bottleneck, impeding near-term growth and business scalability. When looking at
performance, there are a few key areas to consider:
·
Throughput
performance:
Comparing your requirements with tunnelled throughput measurements will be an
important part of ensuring seamless site-to-site performance. Other numbers to
consider include concurrent sessions and maximum users and devices, which are
useful for determining the potential for long-term growth.
·
Connectivity
interface: The most
straightforward performance consideration is whether the gateway has enough
physical ports and LTE connectivity to connect your network infrastructure
together, including your core switching stack, other gateways, and any ISP
services.
·
High
availability: As your
business grows and more traffic passes through your network, you’ll want to
consider backup hardware and cluster configuration options to ensure
performance and business continuity.
Leveraging
network management
Gateways
offer on-premises and cloud-based management solutions. On-premises management
through localised software or a device Web UI can be attractive for those that
need to meet regulatory standards or internal requirements. Cloud management
solutions, however, have seen rapid adoption as midsize businesses expand
support for the modern hybrid workplace. Aruba Central, for example, is a
cloud-native solution designed to help you quickly deploy, manage, and maintain
your network, end-to-end, no matter how far and wide it scales. In fact, 64% of
surveyed Aruba Central customers estimate they have reduced the time it takes
to deploy a new network or site by at least half.
The
ability to have every branch site and networking device accessible and
configurable from behind a single, secure log-in provides unparalleled business
scale.
“You’ll
quickly discover that Aruba can efficiently put your network to work for you, ensuring
that you stay ahead of the game. It does this by using smart, scalable, and
secure gateways,” says Warren Gordon, ARUBA/HPE Business Unit Manager at
Duxbury Networking (local distributors of ARUBA/HPE technology).
Aruba
9000 gateways compact and powerful, providing uniform network security and
resiliency for multiple business branches and growing campus networks, whether
they’re connecting through the wired, wireless, or WAN network. They are your
first line of defence, scanning incoming and outgoing traffic to keep your
business, employees, and customers safe without slowing down your network.
“Aruba
gateways have several benefits, including their ease of deployment, their
scalability, and user-friendly management. By being able to resolve issues
faster, you’re also able to free up IT resources to support business growth.
Contact the Duxbury team today to find out how to leverage these benefits,”
says Gordon.