Enterprise networks today carry a much larger burden than they did a decade ago. Wireless infrastructure now supports a constant flow of users, devices, applications, and cloud-based services. It must do all this while staying secure, responsive, and reliable. With demands rising and resources often stretched, many IT leaders ask how they can keep up without sacrificing reliability or user experience.

Network automation offers a practical answer and a real solution that helps simplify complexity, reduce manual tasks, and allow IT teams to focus more on strategy and less on repetitive troubleshooting.

If automating your wireless network and security operations still feels like a risk, you’re not alone. Many organizations share the same hesitation. Yet more leaders are making the shift because they see measurable results and recognize the growing need for smarter, more adaptive wireless network solutions. This approach does not replace your team; it supports them by providing the right tools to operate with greater clarity and confidence.

Let’s discuss how network automation could work in your environment.

Rethinking Wireless

Legacy wireless LANs were designed in a very different era. This was before smartphones, cloud apps, IoT, and remote work became central to the enterprise. These older systems are not equipped to handle today’s dynamic connectivity demands. They also fall short in providing insights across locations or supporting automated decision-making.

Without automation, your team may spend hours manually troubleshooting Wi-Fi issues, reviewing logs, and switching between tools just to locate the source of a problem. This reactive approach drains your resources and limits your team’s ability to focus on strategic work. By contrast, modern wireless network solutions that include AIOps can detect root causes and resolve problems automatically, often before users even notice them.

WEI partner Juniper Networks reports that organizations using AI-assisted onboarding can reduce deployment and operational time by up to 90 percent in new campus environments. For enterprise IT leaders working under tight timelines and limited headcount, this result speaks volumes.

Watch: Winning The Network Game With WEI & HPE Aruba Networking

Making Sense Of Network Automation

How does help organizations take advantage of automation?

Juniper Mist uses a modern microservices cloud architecture that continuously learns and adapts to your network environment. By combining machine learning with real-time telemetry, it automates operations from planning to long-term optimization. This helps your wireless network and security systems work together in a smarter way.

Here are some of the key ways Juniper Mist helps IT teams simplify wireless network solutions and manage operations more effectively:

• Identifying issues in real time using data from access points, switches, and firewalls.
• Accelerating deployments through AI-powered configuration assistance.
• Simplifying troubleshooting by connecting data points from different network layers.
• Improving user satisfaction through proactive resolutions.

Juniper Mist helps your team stop chasing problems and start acting on solutions. Instead of responding to every ticket, your team gains confidence in a system that learns from the network and responds with speed and accuracy.

Addressing Uncertainty Around Innovation

One of the biggest obstacles to network automation is hesitation. New technology often comes with unknowns: Will it work? Is it reliable? What happens if something goes wrong?

That uncertainty is valid, especially when your business relies on consistent uptime. Automation helps reduce this uncertainty by taking the guesswork out of network operations.

Juniper Mist addresses these concerns with practical tools and transparent workflows:

• offer plain-language responses to technical questions. They guide admins through troubleshooting and configuration in a conversational format.
• Self-healing capabilities allow the system to detect and correct issues automatically, based on learned patterns.
• Open APIs make it possible to integrate Mist into your existing tools, eliminating disruption and helping teams keep their workflows intact.

According to Juniper, AIOps can deliver in operational savings. That number reflects more than just cost. It points to time regained, risks avoided, and a workforce empowered to move faster with confidence.

Watch: 5 Reasons Why SD-WAN Works For The Enterprise

Security That Works At Scale

Securing today’s network means more than firewalls. Employees now work from many locations. Devices and apps come and go constantly. Without a modern solution, the risk surface becomes harder to manage.

Juniper Mist brings to the wireless edge. It uses identity-based access controls to define who can join your network and what they can access. This helps limit threats and enforces safety at scale. Whether onboarding IoT devices, managing BYOD environments, or granting access to contractors, Mist ensures each device follows the correct policies.

This kind of network intelligence builds trust with your security team. You can protect your organization without slowing down innovation or user experience.

Real-World Impact You Can Measure

IT leaders who adopt Juniper Mist and similar wireless network solutions report measurable results:

• Deployment speed increased by up to 90 percent in greenfield projects
• Support tickets related to wireless connectivity dropped by as much as 90 percent
• Operational expenses fell by up to 85 percent due to less time spent on troubleshooting
• Security posture improved through identity-based segmentation and policy enforcement

These results show that automation is not just a technical upgrade. It is a strategic tool for enabling better outcomes across the enterprise.

Final Thoughts

Network automation with Juniper Mist transforms more than just your IT operations. It helps your organization respond faster, work smarter, and support users with confidence.

If you are considering a shift to an AI-powered wireless network solution, make sure you work with a team that understands both the technology and your business goals. WEI, a proven Juniper Networks partner, offers the expertise to guide you through every phase from strategy and design to implementation and ongoing support.

Ready to take the next step? Let’s talk about what network automation could look like for your organization. WEI’s team is here to walk you through it, answer your questions, and help you build a wireless network and security strategy that actually works for you.

Next Steps: Greater visibility and better security tools are needed to ensure the Zero Trust network environment that companies desire. Additionally, hybrid networks have evolved far beyond the basic composition of a public cloud and on-prem environment.

WEI’s free tech brief identifies the three main components of HPE Aruba Networking’s powerful EdgeConnect Enterprise platform.  to access your free copy of the tech brief, SD-WAN: 3 Components To Efficiently Connect Users To Applications.

The post How Automation Builds Confidence In Wireless Network And Security appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Reliable, seamless connectivity is essential for modern organizations, whether managing a bustling campus or a dispersed branch network. In these environments, prioritizing performance, reliability, and user experience is vital.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have introduced exciting developments in network management, especially in wired and wireless LANs. These are not just enhancing connectivity; they are revolutionizing it. Let’s explore how these technologies shape how we connect in today’s fast-paced world.

Understanding The Need For Advanced Network Solutions

Campus networks are important across various sectors, extending beyond educational institutions to corporate environments. As organizations expand, the need for reliable campus network solutions comes into focus. It’s essential to address potential issues proactively to ensure minimal user disruption. To achieve this, wired and wireless LAN systems must be operationally reliable.

Similarly, branch networks require flexible and dependable solutions to meet the diverse needs of businesses. Advanced network systems should guarantee that all remote locations have the same connectivity and performance as the leading campus network.

Embracing this new era of connectivity means staying ahead of potential challenges and providing consistent performance across all types of networks.

Why Choose AI-Driven Campus And Branch Network Solutions?

Emerging technologies are revolutionizing how organizations manage their networks, transitioning from reactive to proactive strategies. This shift notably improves the efficiency and performance of wired and wireless LANs, campus and branch networks, delivering significant benefits across various domains. Here are the key advantages of this evolution:

1. Improved UX: With AI-powered solutions like Juniper’s Mist AI, network management transcends traditional monitoring. These solutions proactively identify and resolve issues, ensuring seamless operations for employees and customers. This forward-thinking approach, driven by AI insights, is a game-changer in network management, anticipating potential problems before they disrupt operations.
2. Enhanced business operations: AI-powered automation, such as Juniper’s solutions, simplifies repetitive tasks like configuring and troubleshooting. By automating these processes, IT teams can redirect their focus towards strategic initiatives, boost efficiency, and reduce costs, especially in branch networks where resources may be thin.
3. Performance: AI integrates data from both wired and wireless LANs to provide a comprehensive view of network health. Real-time data analysis and autonomous fixes secure consistent and reliable performance across campus and branch networks. This reliability is crucial as organizations expand their network infrastructures.
4. Scalable and secure networks: AI-driven campus network solutions facilitate effortless scaling by streamlining the addition of new access points and switches. Advanced AI security features protect wired and wireless LANs by identifying and mitigating threats in real time. This integration allows campuses and branches to expand smoothly without sacrificing performance or reliability. For example, Juniper’s centralized management platform simplifies adding new devices.

Advanced Wired And Wireless LAN Solutions

Organizations must establish that their networks can meet the demands of an increasingly interconnected world. Juniper Networks offers advanced wired and wireless LAN solutions to deliver secure, scalable, high-performance connectivity for campus and branch networks. These solutions leverage the power of AI to simplify network management, enhance security, and provide seamless scalability. Let’s explore how Juniper’s solutions address the challenges faced by modern networks and empower organizations to achieve reliable, high-performance connectivity.

1. Wired LAN

Managing a wired LAN can be complex, especially in large-scale environments like campus networks or multi-site branch offices. Juniper relieves the burden of complex network management through the following benefits.

• Simplified management: Juniper’s cloud-based interface simplifies the configuration and monitoring of wired LAN networks. IT teams can easily manage and troubleshoot the entire network from a centralized platform, improving operational efficiency. This single-pane-of-glass approach reduces administrative overhead and minimizes the chances of human error.
• Enhanced security: Security is a top priority for any organization, and Juniper’s wired LAN solutions provide reliable protection. Built-in network access control guarantees only authorized devices can connect to the network, protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access. Additionally, AI-driven security features continuously monitor potential threats and proactively mitigate risks before they impact network performance.
• Scalability: As organizations expand, their network demands grow. Juniper’s wired LAN solutions are designed with scalability in mind. Whether adding new users, devices, or applications, these solutions can quickly adapt to accommodate increased traffic and device density without compromising performance. This maintains your network’s reliability and efficiency, even as your organization’s needs grow.

2. Wireless LAN

As more businesses and institutions embrace wireless technology, providing reliable connectivity across diverse environments becomes increasingly essential. Juniper’s wireless LAN solutions offer the following features to deliver a seamless user experience across campus and branch networks.

• Reliable connectivity: Juniper’s high-performance access points deliver consistent wireless coverage, even in high-density environments like university campuses, office buildings, and conference centers. With advanced features like beamforming and automatic frequency adjustment, these access points deliver reliable connectivity for all devices, even in the busiest, most demanding environments.
• Advanced analytics: One of the standout features of Juniper’s wireless LAN solutions is the integration of Mist AI, which provides advanced analytics to track wireless client performance. This AI-powered platform collects data on user behavior, network performance, and device interactions, offering actionable insights to optimize the network. IT teams can use this data to identify potential issues before they impact users and ensure the network is operating at peak performance.
• Customizable policies: Network administrators can define custom policies to prioritize critical applications or devices, ensuring optimal performance for business-critical operations. For example, a company could prioritize video conferencing applications over less critical traffic to guarantee smooth communication during important meetings. This level of control allows organizations to tailor their networks to meet specific needs and demands.

Redefining Network Management With AI

At the heart of Juniper’s wired and wireless LAN solutions is Mist AI. By continuously monitoring network performance and user behavior, Mist AI helps organizations proactively manage their networks, minimizing downtime and improving overall efficiency.

• Marvis Virtual Network Assistant: Juniper’s conversational AI tool simplifies network troubleshooting. Using natural language processing, allows IT teams to interact with the network more intuitively, asking questions and receiving actionable recommendations. This reduces the time spent on troubleshooting and will enable teams to address issues more quickly, enhancing overall network reliability.
• Network insights: Mist AI offers powerful network insights by analyzing metadata from both wired and wireless LANs. This analysis helps detect trends, identify potential issues, and predict future network performance. Organizations can make informed decisions about capacity planning and performance optimization by better understanding the network’s health.
• Bluetooth integration: Juniper’s patented antenna array supports Bluetooth-based services, enabling location-based applications such as asset tracking and personalized customer engagement. This integration enhances the value of your network by allowing organizations to deliver innovative services beyond traditional connectivity.

Maximizing Productivity And Business Outcomes

Juniper’s AI-driven campus and branch network solutions help organizations achieve increased productivity, improved user satisfaction, and long-lasting scalability. Whether in education, healthcare, or business, these solutions help organizations stay ahead of the curve through the following:

• Improved productivity: Reliable connectivity is essential for fostering collaboration, both within organizations and between remote teams. Juniper’s wired and wireless LAN solutions keep employees and students connected to critical applications and resources, minimizing interruptions and optimizing workflows.
• Enhanced user satisfaction: AI-powered network management minimizes disruptions and proactively resolves issues. This leads to a better overall user experience for students in a campus network or employees in a branch office. Maintaining a stable, high-performance network boosts satisfaction and promotes higher organizational productivity.
• Future-ready infrastructure: As technology continues to evolve, so do the needs of organizations. Juniper designs its network solutions to scale with your business, making sure your network infrastructure stays agile and adaptable to future advancements. By embracing AI-driven solutions, organizations can future-proof their networks, making them more resilient to changing demands and ensuring long-term success.

For instance, Juniper’s network solutions provide a stable foundation for students and faculty where uninterrupted access to learning resources is vital in educational institutions. Similarly, in a corporate environment, Juniper’s AI-powered branch networks enable reliable connectivity for remote employees and ensure that business operations run smoothly regardless of location.

Final Thoughts

AI-driven solutions for wired and wireless LANs offer a transformative approach to managing campus and branch networks for organizations navigating the complexities of modern connectivity. With innovations like Juniper Mist AI, these solutions optimize network performance, enhance reliability, and elevate user experiences across diverse environments.

As you look to enhance your campus and branch networks with advanced solutions, having the right partner makes all the difference. WEI’s expertise in technologies like Juniper Mist AI will enable your organization to achieve seamless connectivity, superior reliability, and future-ready scalability. Contact WEI today to unlock the potential of AI-driven networks and build a scalable, future-ready infrastructure.

Next Steps: Higher education institutions are constantly looking for ways to attract and retain students. Beyond impressive facilities and engaging curricula, providing a seamless digital experience has become a crucial differentiator. At WEI, we understand the need for modernizing college networks to meet the evolving demands of digitally-savvy students.

Transform your campus network with WEI’s AI-native approach. Download our comprehensive tech brief, to learn how we can help you modernize your college network, ensuring a competitive edge in attracting and retaining students.

The post How AI-Driven Network Solutions Better Enable Campus And Branch Operations appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Modern higher education campuses rely on a strong digital infrastructure. As each incoming graduating class grows more technically savvy and more devices and applications become integral to learning, universities and colleges require high-performance networks to support the needs of students, faculty, and staff while safeguarding sensitive data from cyber threats.

Technology plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of higher education. However, managing this complex IT environment can be overwhelming for campus IT professionals. This article examines the three essential pillars of a successful higher education IT strategy: infrastructure, connectivity, and security. We explore how institutions can address these challenges by leveraging industry-leading technology and partnering with trusted collaborators.

Evolving Higher Education IT Solutions

IT infrastructures in higher education have evolved beyond just providing basic internet access. Today, universities must deliver seamless connectivity across campuses, support a growing number of devices, and ensure that both academic and administrative functions operate efficiently.

These requirements demand advanced higher education IT solutions that address specific challenges such as:

• Reliable connectivity: Students, faculty, and administrators demand uninterrupted access to online resources, learning platforms, and administrative tools.
• Device management: With the rise of mobile learning and BYOD (bring your own device) policies, universities need solutions that allow them to manage and secure an ever-growing number of endpoints.
• Cloud integration: As more applications move to the cloud, campuses need networks that can support cloud-based services without sacrificing speed or reliability.

By working closely with technology partners, institutions can leverage the latest advancements in network infrastructure, connectivity, and security to meet their evolving needs.

Building A Scalable Foundation

As student populations and digital demands grow, scalable network solutions become essential for higher education institutions. Many colleges and universities struggle with outdated networks that cannot accommodate the increasing traffic or devices. A scalable solution allows the network to grow in tandem with these demands, ensuring consistent performance across the entire campus. This includes:

• Data center optimization: Modern data centers are the heart of campus IT operations. Here, you can consolidate resources, leverage virtualization technologies, and implement efficient cooling and power management solutions for cost savings. Tools like Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) can automate data center provisioning and configuration, streamlining management and reducing risks.
• Scalable network solutions: Campuses are dynamic environments with ever-increasing bandwidth demands. Scalable network solutions like software-defined networking (SDN) offer the flexibility to adapt to changing network traffic patterns and support future growth. SDN empowers you to centralize network management, simplify configuration, and dynamically provision resources based on real-time needs.
• Unified communication: Facilitate seamless communication across departments and locations with a unified communication platform that integrates voice, video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaboration tools. This fosters faculty-student interaction, enhances administrative workflows, and simplifies collaboration on research projects.

WEI recognizes the importance of scalable infrastructure in ensuring that higher education institutions stay competitive and efficient. For example, through our partnership with NERCOMP, we support universities by providing custom solutions tailored to their unique needs to help them build future-ready networks.

Reliable And Secure Connectivity

Reliable network connectivity is the backbone of any thriving digital campus, ensuring smooth operations across academic and administrative functions. To achieve seamless connections, institutions should focus on several key strategies:

• High-performance wired and wireless networks: Equip classrooms, labs, dormitories, and common areas with dependable wired and wireless networks. Implementing a high-density Wi-Fi solution is crucial as students and faculty bring an increasing number of devices to campus, requiring fast, reliable connections to support learning and collaboration.
• Secure network access control (NAC): A strong network access control is essential for managing and securing network access for authorized devices. NAC solutions help prevent unauthorized users from gaining access, reducing the risk of malware, data breaches, and other security threats.
• Network segmentation: By segmenting the campus network into separate zones for different user groups (e.g., students, faculty, administrative staff, and guest users), universities can enhance security. This approach limits access to sensitive data and critical resources, minimizing the impact of potential security breaches and improving overall network efficiency.

Integrating these strategies ensures that institutions maintain a reliable, scalable, and secure network infrastructure capable of supporting the demands of a modern higher education campus.

Prioritizing Campus IT Security

Educational institutions are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the vast amount of sensitive data they store. A successful breach can disrupt operations, compromise sensitive information, damage reputation, and incur significant recovery costs.

To mitigate these risks, campus IT departments must prioritize comprehensive security strategies. This includes:

• Automation: Automating tasks like vulnerability assessments, patch management, and threat detection and response allows IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives.
• Data encryption: Encrypting data both at rest and in transit ensures confidentiality even if it’s intercepted.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA adds a layer of security by requiring users to verify their identity beyond a username and password.
• Security awareness training: Educating the campus community about cybersecurity best practices helps prevent human errors that can lead to breaches.
• Zero trust security: This model assumes no user, device, or application is inherently trusted, requiring continuous authentication and authorization.
• Threat intelligence: Leveraging AI and machine learning, modern security systems can detect and respond to threats in real time.

As WEI’s long-time partner, offers solutions that incorporate these elements, providing automated threat detection and response mechanisms to help institutions proactively protect their valuable data.

Final Thoughts

Higher education institutions face complex IT challenges, but by taking a holistic approach to infrastructure, connectivity, and security, they can build a resilient digital foundation that empowers learning and innovation.

Partnering with trusted collaborators like WEI and industry leaders such as Juniper Networks is essential for achieving this goal. These partnerships empower IT professionals to implement cutting-edge solutions that safeguard sensitive data, enhance network performance, and stay ahead of emerging cyber threats. By leveraging the expertise of these industry leaders, universities can ensure their infrastructure not only meets current needs but also supports future growth and innovation.

Invest in our solutions now and pave the way for your institution’s technological progress and long-term success.

The post Discovering Smart And Scalable Network Solutions For A Future-Ready Campus appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Higher education institutions today require a higher standard of network as they face unprecedented demands on their network infrastructure. Often, the list of demands on wireless infrastructure exceeds that of a corporate enterprise. Notable expectations include:

• Delivering robust performance to support extensive research activities
• Meeting lofty expectations of tech-savvy students with many devices
• Accommodating a diverse range of applications and services
• Ensuring seamless connectivity across sprawling campuses
• Maintaining stringent security standards to protect sensitive and personal data

These networks must handle massive data transfers, support cutting-edge research technologies, and provide reliable, high-speed access for thousands of users simultaneously. Additionally, modern colleges and universities want to ensure an equitable campus experience for all students, making it essential for their networks to be accessible, inclusive, and capable of meeting the diverse needs of the entire campus community.

Wireless Starts with Revolutionary Wired Infrastructure

While college students care mostly about wireless accessibility and performance, it all starts with having the proper wired infrastructure to support it. That means your institution must identify a vendor that understands both. For the fourth year in a row, WEI partner Juniper Networks was named a leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless Infrastructure.

Wired networks may sound plain on the surface, but Juniper’s Mist AI transforms it from a mundane necessity into a powerful, intelligent asset that supports everything digital. The Mist AI platform leverages AI-native automation to streamline network operations while significantly reducing the need for manual intervention. This automation spans the entire network lifecycle, from initial deployment to ongoing troubleshooting and optimization.

The Power of Juniper’s Mist AI

While your wired infrastructure remains on-premises, Juniper Mist Cloud Services provide a unified cloud-based management platform for both wired and wireless networks. This approach goes beyond traditional cloud management by harnessing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced data science techniques to optimize user experiences and simplify operations across your entire network ecosystem. Benefits of this approach include:

• Enhanced visibility into user experiences and network performance
• Proactive issue detection and resolution through AI-native insights
• Real-time analytics and insights into network usage and performance
• Simplified network management and troubleshooting through automation

Can Your Network Do This?

The visibility that Juniper’s Mist AI provides isn’t limited to alerts about your infrastructure devices. It is about offering key insights into your users, such as the ability to analyze foot traffic patterns for better space and resource utilization. This capability not only ensures that students and faculty receive the service levels they expect but also promotes environmental and financial sustainability through optimized resource management. Here are some futuristic features that Mist AI-supported networks can do for today’s college campus:

• Provide students with navigation to help them find classrooms and other campus facilities more easily.
• Easily locate portable assets such as lab equipment or student devices
• Locate individuals who need assistance in emergency situations or steer students and faculty away from problem areas.

When you begin to realize the full gamut of what Juniper AI is capable of, you begin to understand why Gartner positioned it furthest in “Completeness of Vision” relative to other vendors and highest in “Ability to Execute.”

Switches Made Easy

Juniper’s creates the network fabric that unifies all the digital entities and users across today’s campuses. From the EX4400-24X with its 100GbE/40GbE uplinks to handle your mammoth data loads to the EX2300-C that offers a compact, cost-effective solution for low density offices, Juniper Networks has the switch offerings to meet every need.

Regardless of which switch you choose, Juniper Mist simplifies deployment with zero-touch provisioning just involves 4 simple steps:

• Unbox the switch
• Scan the QR code
• Claim the device
• Onboard it to the Mist AI cloud

This straightforward approach makes implementing a network with advanced intelligent features remarkably simple. Juniper’s EX Series, combined with Mist AI, offers a powerful solution for modern campus networks, balancing high performance with ease of management.

The Ultimate Professor

Your students want their class to be led by a competent, highly experienced professor they can engage with. Juniper believes your network should, too. Enter Marvis, a virtual assistant that uses natural language processing to interact with your network support personnel.

Marvis eliminates the need for complex dashboards or CLI commands. It also monitors your entire network landscape on a 24/7 basis to proactively identify issues that it can either automatically resolve or provide actionable recommendations. Like the students you support on campus, Marvis is constantly learning from new data and feedback to improve its insights and recommendations over time. Your IT teams can even train Marvis to focus on specific issues or metrics that are relevant to your organization.

Conclusion

The competition for students is intensifying. Students are seeking a modern college campus experience that will enhance their learning and social interactions. This requires a modernized network. Discover why universities and college campuses worldwide are choosing Juniper to ensure success for both their institutions and the students they serve.

Next Steps: Transform your campus network with WEI’s AI-native approach. Download our comprehensive tech brief, to learn how we can help you modernize your college network, ensuring a competitive edge in attracting and retaining students.

The post Pioneering The Next Generation Of IT Infrastructure For Higher Education appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The business landscape is marked by rapid innovation, disruption, and intense pressure on IT teams to accelerate digital transformation. As generative AI (GenAI) and natural language processing (NLP) reshape business expectations, the enterprise network emerges as a critical component for delivering data services and enabling technologies. Ensuring optimal network performance and health is important for business success and delivering exceptional user experiences.

AI-powered networking offers a transformative solution to address the growing complexity of networks and the evolving threat landscape. Advanced AI optimizes network performance for applications and users by enhancing and automating various tools and processes. Let’s delve into the specific benefits that AI-powered networking can bring to your business.

Transforming Your Enterprise Network

Traditional IT operations are plagued by several challenges, including:

• A lack of collaboration between network and security teams
• Manual network service provisioning
• Limited visibility into user activity, application traffic, and connected devices
• An IT team overburdened with reactive monitoring, reporting, and troubleshooting (MRT), leaving them with less time for proactive improvements that could prevent problems in the first place.

GenAI and NLP are transforming business priorities by driving automation, enhancing security, and optimizing resource allocation. However, with the advent of new technologies, threats are still at large and constantly evolving. To address evolving threats and ensure compliance, a new strategy is crucial – one that embraces zero trust security.

Here’s where AI-powered networking comes in. It acts as a force multiplier for existing network tools, enabling continuous optimization that benefits both applications and users. More importantly for network administrators, AI automates complex IT processes and streamlines network operations (AIOps).

This frees network administrators from tedious tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives and proactively hunt for threats. The outcome is a demonstrably secure and adaptable enterprise network architecture that empowers both networking and security teams.

The secure and versatile network services architecture created by AI-powered networking paves the way for a multitude of benefits:

1. Collaborative And Enhanced Productivity

For an enterprise network to function optimally, a common foundation for both network operations and security is crucial to ensure seamless user access while effectively addressing ever-evolving cyber threats.

Due to the challenges of the traditional approach to network management, we need a new way to orchestrate data securely, simply, and automatically – which is achieved through AI-powered networking. Here’s how this approach achieves superior network security and management:

• AIOps: Leveraging machine learning (ML) and NLP allows network and security teams to work together using common tools. These tools provide real-time insights and automate routine tasks, freeing up valuable IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives and comprehensive cybersecurity protection.
• Enhanced network performance and uptime: AI-powered networking optimizes network performance and uptime, minimizes disruptions, and ensures critical applications are always available.
• Network as an IoT hub: The network can be transformed into a secure and efficient hub for connecting and managing IoT devices. Compatibility with various protocols and third-party USB connections simplifies the integration of new on-site technologies.
• Greater visibility and control: Gaining deeper visibility into user behavior, application traffic, and connected devices empowers proactive security measures. This allows for the implementation of “deny-first” access controls based on zero-trust principles.
• Digital experience optimization: AI-powered network analytics can unlock valuable insights into user experience and network power consumption. This data can then be used to optimize network performance and user experience.

This shift towards a security-first, AI-powered network empowers your IT teams to be more collaborative, proactive, and efficient. It allows them to maintain and leverage the network as a platform for growth and innovation.

2. A Network Aligned With Business Goals

As your business evolves, its network requirements will too. Are you seeing a growing need to support clients with cutting-edge Wi-Fi technologies like 6GHz or high-bandwidth wired access like 10GbE? Perhaps you’re anticipating increased data demands that need further investment in your campus network and WAN infrastructure. Identifying these emerging needs is crucial for ensuring your network can continue to support your business goals.

To keep pace, organizations need enterprise network solutions that can deliver a consistent and reliable experience for businesses, IT teams, and end-users alike. This network should be intelligent and adaptable, capable of automatically optimizing performance and security.

HPE Aruba Networking Central is fit for the modern workplace as it offers a suite of enterprise network solutions designed to address these challenges and empower your line-of-business initiatives. These solutions leverage network automation, AI-powered networking, and AIOps to simplify network management, including:

• Unified infrastructure operations: Manage your entire network through a single platform, from Wi-Fi and switching to SD-WAN and VPN. This provides network-agnostic visibility and control, allowing easy integration of third-party services like IoT and security solutions.
• Rapid onboarding and deployment: Self-service registration and privacy-centric service availability simplify user onboarding. Cloud-based features like authentication, MPSK, Bonjour, and AirGroup further expedite deployment and reduce administrative burden.
• Automated configuration at scale: Leverage advanced features like NetEdit, port profiles, and cloud-native switch management to automate network changes with minimal disruption.
• AI-powered performance optimization and diagnostics: HPE Aruba Networking Central utilizes ML to continuously monitor and automatically adjust network configurations for optimal user experience, 24/7.
• User experience insights: Gain valuable insights into network and application performance through User Experience Insight (UXI) sensors deployed throughout your network. These sensors identify and aggregate anomalous user experience issues for faster remediation.
• NLP integration: Simplify network diagnostics with NLP-powered search functions within HPE Aruba Networking Central, enabling a more human-like approach to troubleshooting.
• IoT convergence: Easily integrate a wide range of IoT operational products and services with your existing IoT-optimized access point infrastructure.
• Carbon footprint management: Monitor power utilization, carbon emissions, and resource consumption to support corporate sustainability initiatives. Network Central generates environmental impact alerts and reports to provide clear visibility into your network’s ecological footprint.

Moreover, HPE Aruba Networking is offered as a network-as-a-service (NaaS) model. This subscription model delivers full enterprise network solutions on-demand to eliminate upfront costs. NaaS empowers your IT team with AIOps and network automation features like:

• AI-powered insights to optimize performance and prevent issues, ensuring a smooth user experience.
• Outsource the entire network lifecycle, from planning to end-of-life support. This guarantees an up-to-date, secure network.
• Flexible consumption options let you pay only for what you use, accelerating the mean time to value of your network investment.

NaaS offers agility and simplifies network operations, making it a strong contender for the future of enterprise network management. By leveraging HPE Aruba Networking’s solutions, you can build a scalable network that aligns with your evolving business goals. This, in turn, empowers line-of-business initiatives and delivers a consistently positive user experience.

3. Modern Security For Modern Threats

The rise of cloud-native applications, hybrid cloud strategies, and ever-changing compliance requirements necessitates a more granular approach to network security. HPE Aruba Networking simplifies security with a zero-trust approach, ensuring compliant and up-to-date network solutions.

• Unified policy orchestration with automation: Apply consistent security policies across WLAN, switching, and SD-WAN environments with global automation capabilities.
• AI-powered client insights: Proactively identify devices on your network using AI-powered analytics.
• Secure device onboarding and health checks: Ensure only authorized devices with healthy security postures access your network.
• Dynamic segmentation: Enforce least-privilege access controls based on user, application, client, and network context.

HPE Aruba Networking offers a comprehensive Secure Service Edge (SSE) solution that secures remote access to web applications, cloud services, and private applications. It includes ZTNA for granular access control, SWG for web threat protection, CASB for securing SaaS apps, and DEM for performance monitoring and troubleshooting.

HPE Aruba Networking empowers your enterprise network to confidently embrace the cloud while meeting today’s demanding security and compliance needs.

Final Thoughts

Imagine a future where you can deliver exceptional user experiences, accelerate technology adoption, and significantly reduce cyber risks, all with a network that adapts and anticipates your needs. AI-powered networking unlocks a unified infrastructure, empowering your business with a powerful combination of modern cloud-native security, intelligent automation, and flexible consumption. This drives greater efficiency, propelling you further into the digital age.

If you are envisioning the same for your business, our team of networking experts is ready to help you build a responsive network that fuels your digital success. Contact us today.

Next Steps: In our free tech brief, discover the challenges of deploying and managing network infrastructure. HPE GreenLake’s Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) solution simplifies this process by offering flexible, cloud-like networking services with on-premises control, eliminating significant upfront costs.

Overall, the tech brief highlights how HPE GreenLake for Networking enhances operational efficiency, security, and agility at the edge. Access the asset below.

The post Three Innovative Ways AI-Powered Networking Transforms Your Enterprise appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Some secrets are worth keeping, but we’re here to spill the beans on reliable, secure network connectivity for fixed retail locations. Overall, the retail industry has some of the most advanced data centers and hybrid cloud networks within today’s IT landscape. But the corporate center is not where the majority of business operations take place as many retail transactions occur at the outer edge. Some of these edge locations are more remote than others, yet they still rely on the same level of network connectivity. Overall, retail edge locations face unique connectivity challenges that urban, metro, and suburban locations simply do not. These challenges include:

• A lack of traditional network connectivity options
• Limited IT support in the area
• Higher rates of IT literacy amongst staff
• Disaster recovery and business connectivity

Despite these inherent challenges, retail vendors must satisfy consumer markets because customers are mobile and expect the same experience regardless of location. This means that retail vendors must have networks that are just as mobile as their customers. They also need networks that can be implemented quickly enough to respond to emerging and shifting trends, and unexpected events. Clearly, the next phase of retail digital transformation is taking place at the edge.

The Challenge of New Store Locations

In many ways, the opening of a new retail location is like a Broadway opening. Store openings must meet strict deadlines to satisfy revenue and business goals, and the show must go on without a hitch, ensuring that new store patrons have an optimized customer experience. These coordinated store openings do not have time to wait on unknown local vendors to install the wired lines required for network connectivity.

Launching a new retail location is a tumultuous task on all fronts that must be completed in a highly compressed window. Openings are often handled by specialized teams that streamline the process. The network solution must be ready to go out of the box and duplicated repeatedly, regardless of location. The out-of-the-box experience is incredibly important because, in many instances, retail locations lack on-site technical professionals.

And then there is the challenge of temporary or seasonal retail businesses whose peak activity and operations fluctuate across the calendar year. These sites need temporary networks that can be unboxed and deployed whenever and wherever needed. Yet, while network connectivity may be fleeting, they must still offer the same robust security posture that protects permanent fixed locations. Wherever the point of sale is, it must be secure, regardless of temporary nature.

The New Wireless WAN

You may be expecting this discussion to steer towards SD-WAN technology, but we are touching on the evolving solution of wireless WAN with Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions. To be clear, this isn’t just any wireless WAN that relies on fiber connectivity. Instead, this is a cellular wireless solution, built on LTE and that provide the low latency, high bandwidth capacity that retail business requires. Only cellular wireless has the agility and reliability to service retail storefronts residing at the edge or temporary pop-up locations with a defined service window. This is wireless WAN built to service-day connectivity and outdoor operations without the aid of on-site IT professionals.

A Full-Service Network

Retail locations at the outer edge need more than just network connectivity and wireless access. They require all the basics such as firewall protection, threat detection, access control, content filtering and security policy protection. That is what Ericsson’s cloud-managed, all-in-one deliver. Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions has wireless edge networking solutions that can provide your outer edge point-of-sale location with all network services needed to ensure that every sales transaction goes through predictably and securely. Ericsson enterprise-class cellular routers include features such as:

• End-to-end encryption to protect every sales transaction
• Cloaked private address spaces
• Integrated security measures to meet most business or government requirements
• Application-aware firewalls and threat management capabilities
• VPN access to corporate or regional offices when necessary
• Policy-based routing that is centrally configured by your corporate IT team or solution provider to separate and prioritize traffic according to your needs.

Predictability

Enterprise Wireless edge networking solutions help safeguard predictability. Its zero-touch deployment means that you’re not dependent on physical infrastructure or local IT talent to set it up. The router is preconfigured ahead of time and shipped to the designated location. This makes deployments standardized so every implementation gets completed as planned and on schedule. If you want to ensure predictable performance in the event of a device path failure, simply add a redundant router, with each router linked to a different carrier or cell tower.

Predictability isn’t just limited to hardware. A cellular wireless solution from Ericsson Wireless Enterprise Solutions allows for standardized and consistent WAN pricing as you can use the same cellular providers across wide expansive geographical areas. No longer are you bound by the rates of each localized ISP. Now you can leverage your hundreds of locations to negotiate the best price across the board. The simplicity of Ericsson’s inclusive cellular wireless package means that there are fewer vendors, fewer devices, and fewer configurations, all contributing to the predictable nature of this easy to deploy, easy to manage solution.

Conclusion

Now, fixed and temporary retail locations have access to enterprise-class reliability, manageability, and security at the converged LTE or 5G edge. And with Ericsson, your edge locations can operate on a level playing field with your other retail location and provide customers a secure place to make transactions. WEI can guide you every step of the way with Ericsson’s next-generation WAN solution.

Next Steps: Watch our video to learn even more on why wireless WAN is the next step to replacing legacy WAN solutions for your fixed retail location.

The post The Secret To Network Connectivity For Branch Retail Locations appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

When we talk about upgrading wireless infrastructure to the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard, it is instinctive to focus on client computing devices and smart phones. That’s because organizations want to optimize the user wireless experience for their employees and customers, and understandably so. However, for a growing number of enterprises, there’s another critical component to their wireless environment: IoT (Internet of things!). Organizations are integrating a growing fleet of IoT devices to take advantage of cutting-edge technologies. In 2022 alone, the to 14.4 billion active devices. If you’re only looking at optimizing the wireless experience for users, do not ignore IoT’s half of the equation!

Wi-Fi 6E Offers IoT Exclusivity

A primary benefit of Wi-Fi 6E is the exclusive access it provides to the newly approved 6 GHz bandwidth frequency. It has four times the bandwidth capacity of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and supplies 1,200 MHz of extra spectrum. In all, this nearly doubles the amount of delivered throughput to clients that support the new wireless standard. It’s not just the increased bandwidth that Wi-Fi 6E provides, however. It is the ability to separate your most critical user and IoT workloads so they don’t have to compete with noisy legacy wireless devices.

Imagine for a moment all the IoT enabled technology solutions that are parachuting into the healthcare industry. Already, the average hospital utilizes 10 to 15 medical devices for each patient. That constitutes as many as 350,000 devices per hospital and we have barely witnessed the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, longtime surgeons will use augmented reality to rehearse complex surgeries and systems will monitor critically ill patients. These are clearly the types of systems you will want operating within one exclusive frequency.

Of course, it works both ways too. Many legacy and current IoT devices don’t require a great deal of bandwidth to function. This makes them ideal candidates to remain within the 2.4 GHz band, completely separated from Wi-Fi 6E enabled user devices and critical sensory devices. All of this is no problem for Juniper Wi-Fi 6E access points such as the and routers. These tri-band access points support 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz so they can handle the newest wireless stations on the market, while ensuring backwards compatibility with older devices that still serve their purpose.

The Need for Battery Life Extension

According to an EU funded study, 78 million batteries that power IoT devices will be dumped every day throughout the world by 2025 if nothing is done to improve a battery’s lifespan. Many IoT devices rely on batteries. Not only is a diminished battery life bad for the environment, but it also proves expensive to constantly replace them. The Wi-Fi 6E standard is helping aid this issue with its Target Wake Time (TWT) feature that reduces power consumption by empowering access points and wireless stations to negotiate their wake-up times to receive and send data. This not only saves power and promotes extended battery life, but it also reduces network congestion and prevents scheduled overlap in highly concentrated station environments.

Juniper IoT Assurance

While there are multiple companies today that provide Wi-Fi 6E solutions, only Juniper offers Mist IoT Assurance. Juniper Mist IoT Assurance is a cloud-based service that makes it easy for IoT devices to connect using a Multiple Pre-Shared Key (MPSK) mechanism in a secure fashion. Managing and securing the connection process for IoT devices has always proved challenging since the bulk of these devices are headless, meaning that they lack a GUI interface and operate without a keyboard or mouse. This hinders the ability to onboard, segment and manage IoT device credentials at scale. Juniper is changing all of that.

Unlike traditional solutions, its onboarding process doesn’t rely on MAC addresses. This makes it ideal for devices that utilize client MAC randomization. With its automatic PSK expiration that works in conjunction with automatic key rotation, organizations can now keep PSKs regularly rotated without the risk of service disruption regardless of deployment scale. Juniper IoT Assurance is 100% API programmable so you can easily integrate it with your preferred mobile device management solution to further streamline the provisioning processes for your fleet of IoT devices. Other features include location management and the ability to assign traffic policies based on PSK identity.

Soon, Juniper is expected to include built-in tools that will give customers the ability to create custom self-provisioning PSK portals that automatically generates PSKs according to user identity. Automatic client device provisioning will also be further simplified with QR codes or automatic Wi-Fi connection URLs without the need to install anything.

And Let’s Not Forget Marvis

Like other Juniper Mist solutions, your IT team can use natural language queries to communicate with Marvis. Marvis is a virtual network assistant that can perform help desk functionality at your verbal command. Marvis is always there working for you to determine the root cause of plaguing problems and perform automated remediation to solve them. It’s one more example of how Juniper is simplifying the management process of highly scaled IoT environments.

Conclusion

Wireless isn’t just about servicing user devices. Today, you need a wireless solution that provides equal functionality for IoT devices as well. Similarly, if you’re contemplating upgrading your wireless infrastructure to Wi-Fi 6, you’re missing out on the full set of capabilities available today with Wi-Fi 6E. Juniper and Wi-Fi 6E together is the complete solution to maximize your wireless enterprise.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should read!

The post Level Up On IoT With Wi-Fi 6E appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

We’ve been talking a lot about Wi-Fi 6E this spring and summer season even though it was formally introduced by the Wi-Fi Alliance way back in January 2021. So, why all the attention now? There are a lot of groundbreaking aspects of this exciting new technology as Wi-Fi 6E allows for more devices to connect at greater speeds than any of its predecessors. However, it is only now that devices are rolling off the assembly line with Wi-Fi 6E capability. The urgency to upgrade to this new protocol will only grow for enterprises as time goes by.

Still, we must not forget the wireless elephant in the room: Better performance and faster speeds do not amount to much of anything unless your enterprise’s wireless sessions are properly secured. The security threshold of today should always be a determining factor when considering the new technology of tomorrow, especially for wireless environments.

Wi-Fi 6E Is Mandated for WPA3

If your wireless infrastructure primarily relies on Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) as its wireless security protocol, then your system remains vulnerable to attacks that have been present for nearly two decades. That’s because WPA2 dates back to 2004 – the same year the Boston Red Sox broke their 86-year World Series curse. They have since won three more World Series titles, three different US presidents have taken office, and the iPod is far from removed as the most popular personal electronic device. A lot has happened since 2004, and it was good to see Twinkies make a comeback”¦

While Wi-Fi 5, also known as 802.11ac, does include WPA3 as an option, it isn’t enforced, so client devices can revert to the less secure protocol. This isn’t the case with Wi-Fi 6E. The Wi-Fi Alliance mandates the use of WPA3 for Wi-Fi 6E devices that operate in the 6 GHz band. In other words, if you want to experience the expanded boundaries of wireless network performance, you must abide by the increased security parameters.

Why WPA3 Is More Secure

For those that utilize pre-shared keys (PSK) for access authentication, WPA3 removes the ability for hackers to connect to your network using dictionary attacks. This has always been a weak point for WPA and WPA2 as hackers throw thousands of passwords from a list until they get one to hit. Of course, one could always create a 63-character length key consisting solely of gibberish, but let’s face it – how many IT administrators actually do that?

WPA3 replaces PSK authentication with something called Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE). While SAE still uses a passphrase, it isn’t sent between Wi-Fi devices during the SAE exchange. It also commits a device to one password guess for each authentication cycle by utilizing a new authentication handshake mechanism. This prevents an attacker from cycling through an endless password list in quick succession, making brute force attacks nearly irrelevant. While we do not recommend using “password123” or “qwerty” as your passphrase, WPA3 does help relieve the pressure of creating that perfect password.

For those organizations that currently use WPA2-Enterprise, WPA3 gives organizations the option of extending the length of the encryption key from 128 bits to 192 bits. It also requires the use of Protected Management Frames (PMF) that protects traffic from being eaves dropped and forged.

Open Access Now Means Encrypted Access

Providing wireless access to guest end users and the general public has always been tricky. Still, it is an expectation of the end user whenever visiting a business for a sales presentation or performing work in a cafe that requires internet access. Requiring PSK access requires some way to convey the passphrase to those who need it, while providing the convenience of wide-open access introduces austere security issues. Open wireless sessions are especially vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks in which an attacker intercepts the four-way handshake process of the unencrypted connection to lure users to connect a rogue wireless connection. The attacker can then intercept packets that traverse through their device. Wi-Fi 6E prevents this from happening by replacing open authentication with what’s called Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE). OWE merges convenience and security together because all sessions are encrypted with a secret key, regardless of whether access authentication is required or not. In similar fashion to WPA3, OWE support is mandatory for any devices operating within the 6 GHz band.

These Security Features Are Available In Wi-Fi 6…Right?

Almost. Wi-Fi 6E is a technical extension of the Wi-Fi 6 standard that was released in 2019, and yes, WPA3, SAE, OWE and PMF are each available in Wi-Fi 6. However, there is one big thing that isn’t – the 6 GHz frequency band. Not only does the 6 GHz band offer enhanced capacity and throughput, but it also gives an exclusive pipe that Wi-Fi 6E clients can operate in. This means no interference from noisy legacy devices that also rely on legacy security protocols. Because the mentioned security enhancements are mandated with this private frequency band, organizations that work toward a full integration of Wi-Fi 6E are ensured greater security across their entire wireless spectrum. Hands down, mandated security is preferable to optional security.

Backwards Compatibility

Juniper Networks has embraced this new high caliber wireless standard and currently offers two solutions to get you closer to greater security and speed. The Juniper and Juniper are tri-band access points that support not only the 6 GHz frequency, but the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz as well. This makes them backwards compatible so that you can accommodate your current legacy wireless devices while you work to work to upgrade your fleet of devices.

Conclusion

Upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 from Wi-Fi 5 is only a half-step upgrade. With Wi-Fi 6E, you get enhanced security and high performance in one package. Wi-Fi 6E is the complete experience, and with backwards compatibility built into the Juniper infrastructure, there’s no reason not to take advantage of everything that Wi-Fi 6E has to offer.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should read!

The post Don’t Sleep On A Wireless Network Security Nightmare appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Wi-Fi 6E offers a lot of exciting features that can transform your wireless network environment. In fact, it is the only protocol that supports 6 GHz, so new clients don’t have to compete with legacy devices and experience interference from items such like security cameras, microwaves, etc. With four times the capacity of the traditional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, Wi-Fi 6E accommodates high-volume workloads and easily handles bandwidth-consuming streaming technologies. The new standard is governed by WPA3, which offers far greater security than WPA2, as the latter continues having its share of known weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Skip Ahead To The Latest Wireless Network Standard

If your enterprise is still reliant on Wi-Fi 5, otherwise known as 802.11ac, it is time to upgrade from a technology that was first introduced nine years ago in 2013. While Wi-Fi 6 is certainly an upgrade from Wi-Fi 5, it doesn’t support 6 GHz and lacks the performance ability of Wi-Fi 6E. While few client machines support this newest standard, Juniper Networks has the infrastructure products required to make way for the stream of devices that that soon will. Juniper and Juniper are tri-band access points that support 2.4 GHZ, 5 GHz and the new 6 GHz frequencies. This gives them the ability to serve all clients, regardless of which frequency they need.

Simplifying Wireless Network Deployment

While there are substantial reasons to upgrade your current wireless network infrastructure, performing an extensive upgrade is never fun. Fortunately, outside of climbing onto a ladder and installing the access points to your office ceiling, Juniper has greatly simplified the deployment process. That includes the required maintenance, troubleshooting and optimization processes as well. Supporting Juniper’s Wi-Fi 6E devices is just as innovative as the technology it delivers – just plug the Juniper access point into your network and it will automatically connect to the Juniper Mist cloud. Once connected, it downloads its assigned configuration and joins the appropriate network. After that, it is ready to service wireless clients. No wireless controllers, no remoting into access points – you have a functioning wireless network in as much time as it takes to mount and connect the access points.

The ease of hands-free operation doesn’t stop after deployment. Firmware is automatically retrieved and installed to ensure that your access points are up to date with the latest bug fixes and security updates along with the newest features that bring added value to your infrastructure. The result is a wireless network that is stable, secure and predictable, allowing your internal IT team to focus on more important things than maintaining access points.

Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance

While Wi-Fi 6E gives you exclusive access to the 6 GHz band, Juniper access points give you, well, access to something that no other wireless vendor can – At a high level, Juniper Wi-Fi Assurance is a cloud service designed to maximize the Wi-Fi experience while minimizing IT support costs as it incorporates machine learning driven by Juniper Mist AI. This provided level of assurance is made possible by the automation of traditional manual troubleshooting and maintenance tasks. Even more, Mist gives network administrators complete visibility into all aspects of their wireless network.

In addition to observability, it builds real network intelligence about your network as it scours your environment for anomalies. If an anomaly is detected, Mist identifies it and captures packets to analyze and generates event correlation to other events to identify problems and remediate them before they significantly impact your network. Additional features that Mist provides include:

• • Customizable Wi-Fi service levels allow for the ability to set, monitor, and enforce service-level expectations for key Wi-Fi performance metrics.
  • The Proactive Analytics and Correlation Engine gives you the ability to identify the root causes of plaguing problems with a few clicks of the mouse and to fix them permanently.
  • Analyze and extract network insights from up to 30 days of data across your wireless ecosphere.
  • A highly scalable guest access solution that provides external captive portal integration that supports multiple languages, customizable branding, and social login capability.

Meet Marvis

There’s one more critical piece that Juniper Wi-Fi 6E devices and the Mist platform each provide: a virtual network assistant (VNA). Marvis, who we have mentioned before in our blog, utilizes both natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to serve as the conversational interface for your Juniper systems. Marvis doesn’t just understand words and phrases, it can also understand user intent. Marvis can perform prescriptive actions upon command, but more importantly, it never stops learning about your environment to optimize the user experience of your wireless users. Marvis essentially becomes your help desk, solving problems without creating tickets for them.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that Wi-Fi 6E is going to take wireless enterprises to the next level, and our team is prepared to help you do so. Learn how Juniper Networks’ Wi-Fi 6E product solutions can transform your wireless environment today.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should read!

The post Make Your Wireless Network Upgrade Easy With Wi-Fi 6E appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Learn why making a wireless network upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E may not be as complex as you might think. Read more.

The latest protocol for improving your wireless network performance is beginning to make itself available to new devices here in 2022, and its name is Wi-Fi 6E. Chances are, your network management team may be unacquainted with this new innovative standard as very few client devices currently support it. This unfamiliarity won’t be for long, however. Wi-Fi 6E has too many advantages over its predecessors to be ignored. It is destined to empower a whole new generation of wireless and IoT devices to experience faster speed, lower latency, high capacity, and greater security. It might be the biggest wireless network event that you haven’t heard of.

A New IEEE Wireless Naming Convention

If you are new to Wi-Fi 6E, there’s a good chance you are not accustomed to the new wireless naming convention, compliments of the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology – For instance, many organizations are on 802.11ac protocol. So, how does that relate to Wi-Fi 6E? To alleviate the burden of remembering all those different letters such as a, b, g, n, ac, and ax, IEEE formally implemented a new naming system that is much easier to recognize, hence the Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E naming conventions. This new practice makes it easy to discern the order in which they were released:

Make Major Wireless Network Performance Gains With Wi-Fi 6E

The days of handicapping wireless computing experiences is over with Wi-Fi 6E. While users at one time accepted inferior speed and performance as the cost of using wireless versus the steadfast operation of an ethernet-connected desktop, those reduced expectations belong to a forgone era. Modern users expect uninterrupted performance, and that is regardless of how they are connected to the network. Wi-Fi 6E is designed to meet these lofty expectations.

In our handy chart above, you will notice that Wi-Fi 6E is the only wireless standard that supports the 6 GHz frequency band, which gives its supported devices their own exclusive area to operate. This means that new wireless devices don’t have to compete with older and slower legacy devices. If it’s easier, you can think of Wi-Fi 6E as the private express lane on a congested interstate. These express lanes are often optional toll lanes that run alongside highly congested traffic corridors to provide an optimal commuting experience for those willing to pay with an electronic pass. Wi-Fi 6E has an express lane, too, and its version of an electronic pass is that the wireless network devices and wireless infrastructure are to each support this newest standard. By separating from the slower moving traffic, new devices that support Wi-Fi 6E protocol can attain their own exclusive connections.

Improve Your Wireless Network Performance With More Bandwidth

For many enterprises that still rely on older Wi-Fi 5 technology, it is empowering to see why Wi-Fi 6E is better suited to support today’s congested wireless networks. For one, Wi-Fi- 6E’s 6 GHz band has four times the capacity of the traditional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, so it can best accommodate high-volume workloads such as teleconferencing and streaming technologies. The 6 GHz express lane supports seven super wide 160 MHz channels. That’s 12 more than 5 GHz, which is why Wi-Fi 6E can easily serve augmented reality gaming experiences. In the end, Wi-Fi 6e enables multi-gigabit low latency connection for the modern world. And in those rare occasions when you need a little more physical reach to connect your Wi-Fi 6E device, it can always use the 2.4 GHz band to do so. This means greater resiliency for your wireless environment.

Juniper Networks Support For Wi-Fi 6E

While few client devices currently support this new exclusive standard, there’s no doubt that Wi-Fi 6E is the future. With the speed at which innovation is released and adapted today, it’s imperative to ensure that all aspects of your enterprise are future-proof. That includes your wireless infrastructure. Juniper Networks is embracing this exciting new standard that undoubtedly resets the bar for wireless speed and performance. The network company just recently introduced two tri-band access points to the marketplace: and These routers both support secure client-to-cloud automation by connecting to the Juniper Mist network upon startup to download assigned configurations and firmware updates. This dramatically speeds up deployment time, creating an optimal experience for the managing operator as well.

Future-Proof Wireless Network Performance With Wi-Fi 6E

If you are contemplating upgrading your wireless infrastructure to the former Wi-Fi 6E standard that is already three years old, get in the express lane and pass ahead to the next generation of wireless, Wi-Fi 6E. This new standard will not only power the overabundance of end user computing devices that continue to be introduced to your network, but also the plethora of IoT devices that are being implemented to support your key business services. It’s a new world and one that requires a new wireless standard. Contact WEI to learn more about how Wi-Fi 6E can help revolutionize your business.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should have!

The post Wi-Fi 6E: New Boundaries For Wireless Network Performance appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

In today’s rapidly changing work environments, enterprises can no longer mix and match solutions in an attempt to provide security for on-premises and remote employees. Instead, enterprises need one solution that can provide comprehensive, holistic security from edge-to-cloud.

This is a critical time in cybersecurity. Over the last 18 months we’ve seen new security challenges arise as a direct result of the pandemic, including:

• A rise in shadow IT-related incidents fueled by the exodus to remote working.
• Increased cyberattacks, especially ransomware attacks.
• Massive growth of the attack surface as enterprises prioritized performance and productivity over security.

Mix in the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and the inherent security challenges associated with cloud computing and it seems impossible that one platform can secure your on-site users, your remote employees, and the multitude of other devices used across your enterprise every single day.

, begs to differ. Keep reading to find out how Aruba Networks’ built-in security solutions can protect against advanced threats.

1. Aruba For Device Discovery And Profiling

Regardless of the industry, enterprises have huge numbers of devices to manage, whether they’re known and are IoT devices, are utilized by employees, or are unknown and belong to vendors, customers, or other visitors. To stay ahead of the security challenge presented by these devices, enterprises need a solution that can bring visibility and control. Through Aruba ClearPass Device Insight, IT can address the risk associated with these devices and block security holes before bad actors find them.

2. Network Access Control For Wired, Wireless, And WAN

With Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager, IT can rest assured that vulnerable data is protected through centralized user and device authentication, role-based access policies, and continuous attack response.

Through this dynamic, real-time device management system, access for authorized users is simplified, improving employee productivity and reducing risk. ClearPass also supports BYOD initiatives, further improving user experience.

3. Unified Threat Management For SD-WAN

Unlike other security solutions, doesn’t sacrifice performance for security. Through built in edge- and cloud-based security controls, enterprises can reap the full benefits of their cloud and broadband investments.

Despite the attention devoted to performance, enterprises can be confident that the network is secured from edge-to-cloud. Through firewalls placed at the edge, to dynamic segmentation and advanced threat response, Aruba prevents and contains threats, regardless of how distributed your environment is.

4. Secure Remote Access VPN Solutions

These days, you can never be sure where your employees are going to be working from. While many enterprises made plans to go back to the office this fall, those plans have been put on hold due to the ongoing health crisis. Instead, many users continue to work from home, from the road, from hotels, and basically anywhere with an internet connection.

As a result, enterprises need to be ready with secure remote access virtual private network (VPN) solutions. This same technology can also be applied for micro and macro branch locations, reducing the need for multiple, often incompatible solutions or complicated integration scenarios.

5. Policy Enforcement Firewall

With Aruba Networks, enterprises can take security right to the source of data with a policy enforcement firewall (PEF), which provides automated dynamic segmentation for wireless and wired access security in any Aruba Networks environment.

By placing a firewall at the point of connectivity, Aruba Networks is giving enterprises a simple way to control access to the network without creating additional cost or complexity.

6. Integrated Protection For Aruba WLAN

Last but not least, software prevents denial-of-service and man-in-the-middle attacks, while also reducing the risk of over-the-air security threats. As a result, enterprises no longer need to install separate RF sensors or security sensors if they’re using Aruba wireless LAN.

Securing the future of ‘work’ looks different than yesterday, but WEI and Aruba can help.

The edge will only grow and become more complex if you don’t start taking an active approach to integrating security at the endpoints of your business. If you’re interested in any of the security strategies discussed above, WEI can help. offers the holistic security and architectural simplicity needed to stay competitive in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. By taking advantage of Aruba’s full portfolio of security solutions and out-of-the-box integrations, enterprises can fully secure their remote, hybrid, or on-premises workforces.

To make the transition easy, talk to WEI. Our team of network security experts know Aruba’s portfolio inside and out an have implemented it for customer across several different industries. While the details of each project may be different, the goal is always the same, secure my business and the way people interact with it, at the edge.

NEXT STEPS: Just about every business we talk with has long-term remote workforce initiatives, and security has become a larger focal point of each conversation because devices are no longer protected by the traditional enterprise perimeter. Don’t leave security to chance with your remote workforce. See how Aruba is solving the challenge with Aruba Remote Access Points, and find out just how easy Aruba RAPs are to implement and manage in our tech brief below.

The post Six Ways to Achieve Edge-To-Cloud Security With Aruba appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

There’s nothing worse than an investment that doesn’t pan out. Whether it’s hardware or software, a solution that fails to meet expectations, or wastes time and resources, stifles your enterprise’s ability to do business. For these and many other reasons, IT organizations have turned to “as-a-service” models, which lower the burdens and risks associated with new solutions. Get ready for the next aaS offering: Network-as-a-Service with HPE GreenLake for Aruba.

As a comprehensive network-as-a-service (NaaS) solution, HPE GreenLake for Aruba combines the best of Aruba’s products and essential services with the flexibility of HPE GreenLake’s delivery model.

Built-In Flexibility Boosts Productivity And Performance

HPE GreenLake for Aruba is delivered using a data-driven service management approach, which automates workflows and other key capabilities while also allowing customers to fit the solution to their needs.

The benefits offered by HPE GreenLake for Aruba include:

• An accelerated on-boarding experience
• Reduced burden on IT through support from Aruba’s expert team and data-driven automation
• Dodge network slowdowns and outages through strategic service expansions and simple renewals
• Reduced cost and predictable subscription payments on a regular schedule
• Added value through HPE GreenLake

A by found that customers that utilized HPE GreenLake saw an increase in IT team productivity of 40% through reducing the support load and a 75% shorted time to market for deploying global IT products. HPE GreenLake for Aruba combines these benefits with Aruba’s portfolio to maximize IT efficiencies and lower costs.

[Featured Video]
Three Reasons Why HPE GreenLake is the FUTURE of IT

By utilizing HPE GreenLake For Aruba, enterprises will also have access to the following managed connectivity services:

• A Customer Experience Management program
• Aruba Service Manager portal for insights and visibility
• Equipment refreshes, which can be planned for mid-cycle or at the time of renewal
• 24/7 monitoring and remote daily operations

Put most simply, HPE GreenLake for Aruba respects the need for enterprises to guard the bottom line, while also offering strategies to maximize IT efficiencies and improve performance for end-users.

NaaS And The Intelligent Edge

As identified by IDC, today’s enterprises need the network to embrace the edge, wherever it may be. “The edge is where data is created, captured, and processed,” whether it’s the cloud or an internet of things (IoT) device.

To combat the increased burden of management for this extended enterprise network, NaaS offers enterprises a way to outsource the day-to-day management of the network. It also offers dynamic scalability and access to cutting-edge technology through a flexible consumption model. In the report, IDC identifies NaaS as a critical piece for extending the enterprise network to the edge.

Is NaaS with HPE GreenLake Right For You?

In a recent report from , researchers found that when enterprises adopted as-a-service (aaS) offerings on the basis of budgeting, they found additional benefits including:

• Improved agility, which leads to better life-cycle management
• Improved productivity and business responsiveness to drive growth from quicker access to new functions and features
• Budgeting is improved through analytics features

Perhaps most importantly, “Customers quickly realized that the enhanced visibility, transparency, and flexibility of these models allow IT and business leaders to use real-time insights to make strategic business decisions.”

When it comes to NaaS, organizations have come to expect the same service levels and bandwidth access, regardless of the location. This need for availability and flexibility, as well as optimized network performance is driving enterprises towards the adoption of NaaS.

Another driving factor is the need to acquire new IT assets without significant upfront costs. In a recent survey conducted by IDC, 43% of respondents believed that the unique challenges of 2020 and beyond would “significantly or moderately increase” interest in aaS models. IDC also observed that once implemented, aaS models have a high retention rate and frequently lead to increases in implementation.

Are You Interested In HPE GreenLake For Aruba?

As a global, edge-to-cloud company, HPE is helping enterprises around the world implement solutions that improve productivity and reduce costs. In partnering with Aruba for HPE GreenLake for Aruba, they are delivering the reliable, secure, and simple as-a-Service networking experience your employees and IT team need to be successful. to learn how your business can start reaping the benefits of the Network-as-a-service model.

NEXT STEPS: How is your Wi-Fi performing? We can help you determine the answer to that, and provide actionable recommendations to improve Wi-Fi connectivity across your campus or distributed enterprise. Learn more about our wireless network assessment below.

The post Improve Your Network Operations with HPE GreenLake For Aruba appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

has revolutionized the way enterprises do business on every level. For IT, cloud brings some complexity to network operations and infrastructure management.

Whether it’s at the campus, branch, or a remote location, end-users and internet-of-things (IoT) devices are connecting to and accessing the cloud network, creating a complicated interconnected web. As the enterprise grows, the cloud network requires more time and resources to manage.

To combat this complexity and make a cloud-managed network straightforward, developed , a cloud-managed networking solution that features artificial intelligence (AI) powered insights, automation for workflows, and comprehensive security. With this solution, IT teams are able to manage and optimize the entire network environment from a single dashboard, regardless of the location.

Simple network administration

Aruba Central’s foundation is its simple and easy to use interface, which offers everything IT teams need to manage day-to-day operations. This includes direct access to manage network and security infrastructure and configuration, adding or removing devices or licenses, as well as managing integrations with existing IT systems.

This uncomplicated, single-pane-of-glass system saves time and reduces the training that IT teams need to effectively use the solution.

Aruba Central also saves time when it comes to adding network devices, which is an important, but typically complex task. With Zero-Touch Provisioning, an easy setup wizard, and an integrated installer app, onboarding becomes a faster, streamlined process.

Comprehensive management options

When it comes to ongoing management, accurate and timely data is key to ensuring network health. For this reason, Aruba has prioritized visibility and granular control.

From the primary dashboard, IT can access a global or specific site view of all managed devices, as well as a detailed list of device usage, utilization and RF noise, WAN uplink, and tunnel status.

To provide real-time visibility and alerts into the health and status of the network, Aruba Central utilizes advanced AIOps for AI-based insights. Over time, the insights will leverage the growing pool of network data for contextual-based observations.

In the event of a problem, the solution quickly identifies and characterizes the issue, providing context-based information and troubleshooting options. Aruba Central also offers comprehensive reporting options that include device connectivity, , and user activity. IT teams can schedule reports to be run that highlight any area, including device and client inventory, activity auditing, and more.

As a result, Aruba Central provides the consistent, reliable, and timely information IT teams need to support a cloud-managed networ throughout the enterprise.

Aruba Central Cloud Reliability

As with all its products, Aruba prioritized the user experience when designing Aruba Central. The solution offers enterprise users high availability through:

• Web-scale database design, which ensures a responsive performance regardless of the data load.
• Service redundancy, with data centers worldwide available for hosting.
• HTTPS connectivity, with certificate-based authentication.

By utilizing Aruba Central, enterprises can ensure employees have access to the network whenever they need it for whatever task they need to be completed, improving productivity throughout the enterprise and pushing the business forward.

Aruba Central for the Remote Workforce

With today’s distributed workforces, enterprises everywhere need to deliver in-office user experiences to in whatever location they may be in. Aruba Central supports this goal through a number of key features.

These features include over-the-air software and configuration updates and on-demand IT software and services.

Aruba Central’s single-pane-of-glass management system and the scalability offered by the solution pairs with other solutions offered by Aruba, such as , and , to build and support a cloud-managed network for distributed workforces.

Are you interested in Aruba Central for cloud-managed networking?

Regardless of your enterprise’s specific situation, Aruba can deliver the reliable, secure, and simple cloud networking experience your employees and IT team need to be successful. Aruba Central also integrates with the rest of Aruba’s portfolio, allowing enterprises to utilize these integrations to create the cloud environment that works best for them. The Aruba experts at WEI can show you how Aruba Central can work for your business, just today!

Next Steps: Do you want to improve the remote working experience for your employees? Aruba provides every solution you need to keep your employees productive from wherever they work. If you are looking for ways to improve the remote working experience for your employees, you might be interested in our tech brief, “Provide Secure Remote Connectivity with Aruba Remote Access Points.” Click below to start reading.

The post Cloud-Managed Networking Made Easy with Aruba Central appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Each Friday you can expect to see a new “Industry Info to Know” blog post from WEI consisting of a roundup of articles from industry experts, analysts, and our partners that we find insightful and helpful. We will also include links to industry news that you need to know about, news that will impact your business so you can plan ahead for it. We all need to help each other right now, we’re all in IT together.

As a team of trusted advisors to your company, we put a lot of effort into perfecting our practice. We are continuously learning, testing, and expanding our expertise across all facets of the enterprise IT landscape. That being said, we have an obligation to stay ahead of trends, look forward to the future of IT and provide insights to help our customers navigate the ever-evolving IT landscape.

There were a lot of great articles that caught our attention this week. Let’s take a look…

Industry News Insights

Remote access needs strategic planning right now
Regardless of the length of the current pandemic disruption, IT must plan for situations in which it will have to support a large distributed workforce. This Network World article discusses why IT pros should start work on a better remote-access architecture, focusing on secure access service edge (SASE).
Read more

Nutanix DR Multi Site Recovery
In a world where uncertainty is certain and IT disasters don’t come with a warning, IT leaders cannot afford to take the risk of not being prepared. Learn about how Nutanix supports three major DR topologies, with details for multi-site disaster scenarios and recovery workflows.
Read more

One of the goals of NetOps and DevOps teams is to optimize the application experience, but complex infrastructure and dynamic application flows pose challenges. In this post from Cisco, learn how Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Hub with Google Cloud simplifies workflows by automating the tasks needed to deliver a better application experience.

How do you create a consistently functional remote work environment when faced with inconsistent home internet connections that your employees are using? This article from an HPE VP shares six best practices that can help you significantly improve the overall functionality of your remote work environment in the face of inconsistent last-mile connections.

This CIO.com article shares how corporate IT at Oshkosh Corporation has shifted its mindset from supporting core technologies to one that is more closely in tune with business objectives and customer needs. Plus, learn about 5 keys steps for digital transformation that helped them transition the business.

Cisco’s 2020 Global Networking Trends report provided a glimpse into what that future means for IT networking professionals. This article discusses new jobs that will emerge to address changing IT needs such as business translator, network guardian, network detective, and more.

This pandemic has reshaped the economy, the workforce and how technology supports all of it. CIOs are now looking to the future to prepare for the lingering effects it will have on business technology. See what CIO Dive has pulled together as some of the most pertinent stories to emerge from the last two months.

Industry Conferences Update

We are actively monitoring the status of industry tradeshows and conferences and will provide updates as they come in. We’ve been referring to this helpful roundup from SDxCentral: .

Assess your remote worker strategy today

We are finding that companies are all over the gamut when it comes to preparedness for remote workers at scale. WEI has experience and expertise in VDI and Desktop as a Service solutions from the industry’s leading vendors. We invite you to take us up on a VDI assessment or VDI Health Check up today.

How can we help?

We’ve been in tight communications with all customers and are providing peace of mind with the mantra, “Whatever you need, we’ll make IT work.” And we’ve answered the call, helping our customers with everything from supplying equipment, parts, cloud advice, architecture design, VDI, networking support, remote monitoring, staff augmentation services, and so much more… Contact us today to learn how we can help your business.

NEXT STEPS: Explore our other editions of the ‘Industry Info to Know’ Blog Series:

• Industry Info to Know – 05.01.20 Roundup
• Industry Info to Know – 04.24.20 Roundup
• Industry Info to Know – 04.17.20 Roundup
• Industry Info to Know – 04.10.20 Roundup
• Industry Info to Know – 04.03.20 Roundup
• Industry Info to Know – 03.27.20 Roundup

Subscribe to our blog using the form on this page to ensure you get a copy of this weekly email each Friday in your inbox.

The post Industry Info to Know – 05.08.20 Roundup appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

An article in the New York Times dated March 18, 2020 says it best, “Tech can make remote work miserable.” As companies across the country send their employees home to work remotely in an effort to keep them safe and abide by government orders, millions of employees new to the idea of working from home are realizing the tech headaches involved in it. An astonishing 50+ percent of the U.S. is now working from home according to the latest estimates. That’s roughly 85 million people. While the involved numbers should be a surprise, the fact that many of these users have poor or inadequate wireless at home to utilize for work shouldn’t be.

Questionable Wireless is Nothing New

For road warriors and on the road work veterans, the importance of high-performance wireless connectivity has been a known requirement. In a conducted back in 2012 by Hotels.com, the #1 most valued hotel amenity was WiFi. Now think about how the demand for fast dependable WiFi has changed in just 8 years. Many hotel and other complimentary WiFi services are supported by consumer-grade WiFi routers. While non enterprise grade wireless devices are certainly ample for checking one’s email, supporting large file transmissions and online video streaming is an entirely different matter. Even hotel conference rooms can’t always accommodate today’s essential video web conferences. We operate today in a highly dynamic mobile world, which means that high performance wireless dependability is essential for senior executives and other mission critical personnel that are operating in a remote model today.

Aruba Delivers Expected Environments for the Unexpected

The recent current events have shown us the true scale that disruption can occur for businesses today. Businesses cannot afford to shut down in the case of imminent events whether it be natural disasters, man-made events or even pandemics. The ability for company personnel to operate from remote and temporary workspaces has been proven essential. But as so many internal IT departments have discovered first-hand, you cannot manage what you don’t know about. The word “unmanaged” is another word for vulnerable. Wireless networks that are unmanaged are not just prone to slow performance, but security threats such as hackers and malware. Today’s current events have made it clear that companies need a solution that turns unknown and unmanaged remote wireless into known, managed and fully secure wireless. That is what Aruba has done.

Introducing Aruba Remote APs (Aruba RAP)

Aruba’s Remote Access Points product line wasn’t just unveiled yesterday. Companies have been utilizing Aruba RAP solutions prior to the challenges we face in 2020. That is because Aruba understands the needs of the modern workforce of today, and that of tomorrow. Aruba designed their RAP series of products with the aim to not just give network access to remote workers, but to bring the network to remote locations. This means that no matter where an Aruba RAP is located, it serves as an extension to your network.

Total Manageability

Aruba Remote Access Points makes the use of standalone access points in temporary work environments a thing of the past. Aruba’s RAP series can be fully managed by your company’s wireless controller through a secure IPSec tunnel through the web. This includes zero-touch provisioning as well so your workers do not need the direct assistance of an IT professional for setup. For greater flexibility and near limitless scalability you can manage RAPs through Aruba Central, allowing you to manage at any location, from any location. Your employees can easily connect their approved devices to the corporate WiFi network over persistent VPN for secure access from anywhere. With Aruba RAPs, anywhere means anywhere; home, a hotel, customer location, anywhere.

Not Just Wireless, but a Complete Network

Employees depend on more than just wireless. Their location, however temporary, needs to be a virtual office today, which is what Aruba RAP is all about. The Aruba RAP product suite offers local gigabit ethernet ports, including one PoE port. This allows an employee to connect a local printer or power a VoIP phone. The coming RAP 500H series even supports IoT environments.

Security and Speed

Aruba RAPs offer wireless performance up to 1.5 Gbs of maximum wireless throughput, but speed is of little benefit if it isn’t secured. Aruba integrates NSA approved and military grade level security into their product architectures. This is why the U.S. Army relies on Aruba for command post network communications when moving or jumping base locations. Integrated Aruba RAP ethernet ports also support DOT1x for additional security. When remote workers are out of their remote workspaces, they can still connect to the corporate network through their phones or remote devices using Aruba’s virtual intranet access (VIA) client.

Manage Your Remote Workspaces with Aruba RAP

While the challenges that have forced companies to adapt temporary workspaces may be temporary in themselves, the transition to remote work architectures is not a fleeting transition. The dependency on remote workers is being highly accelerated, and those companies that can adapt their network architectures for this new paradigm will possess competitive advantages over its competitors when the next disruption, whatever it is, comes about.

NEXT STEPS: Want to learn more about Aruba’s Remote Access Points? Contact us today to find out how this solution can work for your remote workforce.

The post Enable Secure, Remote Connectivity with Aruba RAP appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The concept of intent-based networking is indeed an evolutionary leap in how we design, manage and maintain the enterprise networks of today. a while back actually coined the phrase of IBN. Rather than relying on manual intervention, intent-based networking incorporates AI and machine learning to automate administrative tasks and functions.

Admins can define the desired state of the network that correlate with the needs of the business enterprise. A software orchestrator governs the network, monitoring performance and enforcing policies in order to achieve predicted performance levels. It is an entirely new approach to networking. One could easily write an entire , but in the end, what you really want to know is how it benefits you and your company. Therefore, we have done that here, listing ten of the biggest benefits of an intent-based network.

1. Agility

Let’s face it; every business is trying to be as agile as possible today in order to compete in an ever-disruptive world with narrowing windows of opportunity. When IT can unleash itself from the dependency of human intervention and instead, incorporate machine-based analytics, your enterprise can get attain greater flexibility in quick succession. According to Gartner, can reduce delivery times within network infrastructure by 50 to 90 percent. Guided by real-time analytics, your network can respond to changing conditions in dynamic fashion. In a dynamic world, you need a dynamic and responsive network.

2. Scalability

It’s very simple. If your traditional network is reliant on manual deployment, configuration and troubleshooting tasks, then your ability to scale is limited to the size of your staff. It is a straightforward relationship. If tasks cannot be implemented without the direct involvement of your staff, then growth is limited, and expensive. Just as automation scaled the manufacturing industry, it can expand the capabilities of your network’s productivity and expansion as well. With IBN, IT can quickly and easily provision, expand and reallocate services.

3. Expanded Network Visibility

Do you really know what resides on your network? Are there areas of your network WAN that are a little foggy? In an intent-based network, you have complete visibility into all network devices. However, visible confirmation of a device’s existence is not enough. into how your network is operating, supporting the desired business initiatives, and achieving compliance. Deployments of devices, configurations and policies are visible for all remote offices and clouds, regardless of location.

4. Consolidated Dashboard

Normally, the words expansive and consolidated work contrary to one another. In the case of a controller-led IBN such as , expansive and consolidated can be used cohesively. That is because you can visually monitor and manage your entire network through a single dashboard. That means your datacenter; remote offices and multiple clouds are visibly accessed through a single portal. Multiple tools are compiled into one platform, giving you total functionality throughout.

5. Increased Efficiency

When you automate manual processes, you increase the efficiency of those processes. Machines perform mind-numbing tasks such as updates and configuration assignments better than humans do. Automation goes beyond these types of perpetual tasks however. Cisco estimates that IT staff members spend up to troubleshooting technical issues. Because AI analytics drives network operations within the IBN, troubleshooting is also automated. When network performance discrepancies are identified, guided remediation is made available so that IT can address problems immediately with little guesswork.

6. Vendor Neutral

IBN is vendor agnostic. That is a good thing because most enterprise networks consists of multivendor components. IBN is an open platform that delivers 360 visibility and extensibility as well. This eliminates the need for deep vendor knowledge. IBN solutions such as utilize multivendor SDKs that allow the controller to interact and monitor network devices from multiple vendors.

7. Reduced Risk

Human error is the of most data breaches. In fact, that nearly 90 percent of all cyber claims stem from some type of human error or behavior. When you eliminate manual tasking from the deployment, configuration and basic operational tasks, you eliminate the possibility of human error. This in turn eliminates security gaps. Orchestrated automation enforces strict directives for all assigned tasks, regardless of workload. No more oversights, no more fat-finger typos. IBN assures predicted secure results.

8. A More Secure Environment

The more sources that information is drawn from, the better that information is. IBN is built on the principle of network and security convergence. This means that your network at large becomes a network of security sensors. All of this information is then correlated in real time so that threats and suspicious activities are quickly identified and can be mitigated before actual damage is done.

9. Insightful Analysis

In IBN environment, the end-to-end network is continually aligned with the intent of the business. To do this requires more than just data driven analytics. A thorough understanding of network performance regarding applications and user experiences requires contextual insights as well. This level of insight leads to predicted workload performances and optimal user based experiences.

10. Greater Control over Performance

Too often business potential is hindered by the limitations of the network. The modern day network should work for the business. The greater control that is achievable in an IBN environment goes far beyond the ability to see into your entire network. , network administrators define the desired state of the network. They input the defined intent of what the network should be. While we could have listed this key benefit first, you have to understand how all of the aspects of automation and assurance get us to this powerful endpoint.

Next Steps: Learn more about Cisco DNA Center in our blog titled “Make your Network Work For You With Cisco DNA Center”

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We could probably list 80 things to know about , but for the sake of brevity, we will keep it to single digits. We say this because there is so much to this all-inclusive network management platform. This solution is the next step in network evolution. Its singular yet expansive platform includes a variety of tools that integrate with so many network functions and technologies. Some of these include network management, automation, virtualization, analytics, assurance, security, compliance and IoT connectivity. Cisco DNA Center is at the epicenter of Cisco Digital Network Architecture, which is Cisco’s architectural blueprint for today’s expansive enterprise networks. Regardless of the complexity of your hybrid architectures that incorporate multiple campuses, remotes branch and cloud architectures, Cisco DNA Center can help simplify it.

1. Cisco DNA Center is all about Automation

One of the primary objectives of is to us to automate workflows and deployments across disparate systems in order to streamline operations across domains. Automation has a number of advantages. It frees your staff from the routine drudgery of mundane tasks, allowing them to focus their time and efforts on value added projects that benefit the organization. Automation removes the element of human error out of the equation, which ensures uniform configurations. This eliminates security gaps and overlooked vulnerabilities. Automation can ensure that the necessary resources are deployed to accommodate in accordance with real-time demand.

2. Cisco DNA Center is based on something called Intent-Based Networking

The idea of an intent-based network has been around for more than a couple of years now. It is a new approach to networking in that the network admin can now define and input what the needs of the network are into the IBN software controller. This ensures that the network works in conjunction with the needs of the business. The controller than translates these named intentions and construes them into policies, which are then deployed automatically and then validated throughout in order to assure optimized performance levels. Intelligent analytics continually verify the stated performance objectives in order to assure these desired states, all without any human intervention. Automated and guided remediation is then induced to correct problems before they can be disruptive.

3. Made by Cisco, but still open and inclusive

Cisco DNA Center servers as the epicenter of the Cisco’s digital network architecture. Current Cisco components such as switches, routers and wireless infrastructure devices are inherently aware of . However, you do not have to have an exclusive Cisco network to benefit it. DNA-Center is a totally open and extensible platform that contains multi-vendor software development kits that allow interaction with network equipment from other vendors. It can also integrate with other management tools through its API structure.

4. The Cisco DNA Center dashboard provides 360-degree visibility

Cisco DNA Center serves as the one-source epicenter of the network. This means total visibility across the wide divide across the complex hybrid architectures of today. Its inclusive dashboard provides an intuitive and simple overview of the network health and status of your network. Drill down menus provide the control points to setup complete automation, orchestration, assurance and analytical functions available within the . The geolocation of your network devices is now completely irrelevant and multiple cloud environments no longer require multiple management interfaces.

5. You can vastly reduce deployment and provisioning times with Cisco DNA Center

Imagine having the ability to deploy and provision network infrastructure devices without any human intervention. That can be your new reality in a Cisco DNA enterprise. Provisioning is now driven by automated policies. With integrated SD-WAN tools, you can greatly accelerate remote branch deployments without the need for someone being on site. Automated provisioning not only deploys a needed device, it deploys it when needed and verifies the success of the deployment.

6. Cisco DNA Center takes the guesswork out of network performance capabilities

You cannot make assurances about your network unless you can accurately predict the performance of your network for required workload fluctuations and conditions. Cisco DNA Center utilizes machine learning to predict future network performance. These predictions are based not just on active performance data, but actual contextual business and operational insights. These insight captures allow you to truly understand the behavior of your users and their interaction with the applications that drive the business process.

7. Security is job #1 for Cisco DNA

You cannot talk about network management solutions today without discussing cyber security. An intent-based network is a secure network. In addition to 360-degree network visibility and automated configuration and deployment verifications, the intelligent analytical nature of Cisco DNA Center detects and mitigates threats in real time. This is possible by conscripting all of your network devices as security sensors, providing constant streams of information concerning suspicious traffic patterns and behavioral anomalies. Threat alerts are then followed by micro segmentation actions and guided remediation.

8. Lower Costs

Your network should help propel your business to new levels, not hold it back. Cisco DNA Center ensures that your network works for your business, ensuring that workloads and applications operate with optimal performance. Optimal performance equates to optimal cost structure. There are many induced cost reductions such as streamlined network operations, reduced complexity and diminished threats. Cisco DNA Center leverages the power of automation to its fullest capacity concerning so many of the manual tasks that consume labor costs in traditional networks. This is one solution that pays for itself each, and every day through greater efficiencies and productivity measures.

[Featured Video]

5 Things to Know about IBN with Cisco DNA Center

NEXT STEPS: Learn more about Cisco DNA Center in our White Paper titled “Make Your Network Work For You With Cisco DNA Center”

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It is hard to say when it happened, but everything has gone digital. We have a digital economy today that involves digital products and services. In order to take advantage of newly found digital opportunities within the digital space, companies are undergoing digital transformations. In order to compete in an environment of perpetual digital change, companies are creating digital strategies that incorporate digital technologies that will allow them to better compete in the digital marketplace.

The nexus of all of this digitization is your network. Have you ever noticed how so many digital disruptors today are able to introduce innovation at accelerating rates? How do they stay ahead of the curve? Some of it is due to strategic innovation and the ability to look at opportunity through a different lens. However, another contributor is a more powerful network, a network that works for the business. These companies understand that it is no longer acceptable for IT to take weeks or months to plan and bring up new sites or applications. Innovation must be continuous.

What is the performance level of your network? Are you grading it strictly on the basis of connectivity or does your organization expect more from it? Today’s digital businesses need more from their networks than the mere ability to connect and share resources. The network needs to align with the objectives of the business as a cohesive unit.

The Intent Based Network

Here is the new reality. The days of IT consuming itself over connectivity and throughput are gone. Your network needs intent today. An intent-based networking model is constantly learning, adapting and protecting your digital enterprise in order to ensure sure that applications, users and devices receive the services they need. An model needs to be an extensible open platform that incorporates automation and intelligence into management, monitoring and support processes. It should also be able to integrate with other IT and technology domains and functions within the most complex of hybrid network architectures. It should also be created and supported by an innovative leader in the network industry with decades of experience and know how.

Introducing Cisco Digital Network Architecture

Your human DNA holds the instructions for making all of the proteins throughout your body. Thanks to Cisco, the network has a DNA as well. incorporates IBN into management and network product platforms. Like human DNA, it holds the instructions of your business network, transforming tedious manual processes into automated intent, making it possible to manage millions of devices in minutes, not hours. Cisco DNA is an open, extensible, strategic platform to ensure that your network is an active participant in IT and business processes. It can simplify and accelerate your network operations at a time when complexity prevails, and the number of devices is exponentially increasing. It’s also the result of over 30 years of enterprise network envisioning and innovation.

Intelligence-Driven

Today’s high-performance networks demand intelligent efficiencies and automated guidance. uses machine-based analytics to proactively predict performance in order to ensure that workloads function optimally. It does this by not only drawing data from throughout the enterprise, but contextual insights from your users, devices and application as well. This allows for accurate forecasting of traffic loads and operational functionality.

Total Automation

Automation comes in the form of zero-touch provisioning of your devices according to identity assigned policies. In fact, the deployment of just about anything, including images, firmware updates, services and configurations can be automated and delivered to all areas of your network. This includes your data center, remote branches and multiple clouds environments. Intelligent driven automation means that repetitive network configuration tasks are totally unnecessary, allowing your IT staff to focus on projects that produce innovation and value

DNA Managed by Cisco DNA Center

At the epicenter of this newly, digitized intent-based architecture lies Cisco DNA Center. It provides visibility throughout your entire network through a single view, giving you the ability to manage the entirety as a single fabric. Cisco DNA Center is your converged software defined orchestrator that houses all of your enterprise network tools into a single platform. It serves as the center point to which data and insights are collected and used allowing for faster incident response and guided remediation of anticipated problems. Don’t limit the scope of Cisco DNA Center to that of just Cisco devices however. Its multi-vendor SDK provides basic device visibility and monitoring of non-Cisco devices and third-party software management systems.

Security is at the Center Too

Security must be at the epicenter as well when it comes to your network. With Cisco DNA, every device becomes a security sensor that is dedicated to threat detection. Once detected, threats are quickly mitigated in real time, even within encrypted traffic. From the centralized dashboard of Cisco DNA Center, security policies can be created and assigned. Strange behaviors and trends can be analyzed for further review. Because security is intelligently automated, human error and mismanagement are eliminated from the equation, which reduces security gaps.

Your Network Runs Better with Intent

Intent means “to give all your attention to something.” Intent is the state of a person’s mind that directs his or her actions toward a specific object. Cisco DNA ensures that your network is intent driven, determined to accomplish the business objectives of your organization. With the introduction of guided intent, your network will move and react faster as it learns to adapt to the changing dynamics of the enterprise. Costs are lowered and risks are reduced. All of these benefits are part of the natural DNA, of a Cisco DNA. Intent to learn more about it today.

NEXT STEPS: Learn more about Cisco DNA Center in our White Paper titled “Make Your Network Work For You With Cisco DNA Center”

The post Why your Digital Business needs a Digital Network Architecture appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

VMware NSX SD-WAN with VeloCloud

VMware CEO, , compares the current vibe about their SD-WAN solution to that of the early days of virtualization when VMware changed how servers are managed and deployed with its ESXI virtual technology. He describes its VeloCloud product as, “the hottest element of the company’s product portfolio.” Gelsinger added, “VeloCloud is quickly becoming a key element of VMware’s edge strategy.”

VeloCloud is incorporated into VMware’s -SD-WAN. The premise behind the product is simple – bring the same level of agility and flexibility to branch offices in order to deploy, manage, and secure application traffic remotely using a transport independent architecture. VMware accomplishes by substituting rigid inflexible network hardware for the nimbleness and flexibility of software. By separating the control plane and data plane layers, intelligence is moved from the data plane to the programmable control plane, substituting labor intensive tasks with automated policies. Some of the specific abilities of VeloCloud include:

• Increase bandwidth economically by aggregating WAN circuits of any type, while at the same time, providing faster application response
• Deploy a branch in minutes with NSX SD-WAN Edge activation from the cloud
• Enable direct cloud access for all users
• Provide standard based encryption to secure connectivity over any type of transport
• Compact multiple virtualized network functions to eliminate single-function appliances and reduce branch IT complexity.

With VeloCloud, VMware is developing a framework that extends its hybrid and multi-cloud environments to the edge for both applications and IoT devices alike. The result is a branch architecture that is agile, automated, and secure.

Cisco Viptela

Cisco has been a leader in WAN infrastructure technology for decades and their SD-WAN product is one of the most widely deployed enterprise solutions of its kind. With Cisco SD-WAN, the company sets out to ensure that every organization can become an “always connected workplace” whether work takes place at corporate headquarters, or district offices thousands of miles away. With deployment cycles growing every shorter and growing branch complexity throughout the network enterprise, Cisco identified the need to create to create a carrier agnostic overlay for any WAN, centralized management and increased visibility and versatility. Formerly , Cisco acquired this leading software defined technology to serve as a natural extension of their dominant product line. By software defining their branch network gateways, companies can reduce their WAN costs as much as 50%.

There are three main facets to Cisco’s software defined WAN solutions.

• Segmentation – Cisco SD-WAN takes the concept of the traditional VLAN even further to provide end-to-end segmentation that is policy driven in order to ensure that WAN traffic is protected.

• Zero-touch provisioning – Cisco SD-WAN gives central IT the ability to perform centralized control deployments and upgrades in order to scale out deployments fast enough to react to changing dynamics.

• Cloud Integration – If everyone is turning to the cloud for its many benefits, then it only makes sense to bring the power of the cloud to the WAN as well. Cisco SD-WAN is cloud based and integrates a cloud first philosophy directly into your WAN infrastructure that simplifies security and improves application performance.

Fortinet and SD-WAN

According to Gartner, 90 percent of SD-WAN vendors are not traditional security vendors and thus there are serious gaps within many of their solutions. Fortinet now integrates their Next Generation Firewall solutions with SD-WAN capabilities. The result is increased scalability, greater flexibility, improved simplicity, and cost savings. All of this without any compromise to security.

erases geographic boundaries, forming a mess like network that connects network and security paths to all of your locations across the world using multiple types of connectivity links that create a borderless infrastructure. It also does away with the need for multiple network devices residing at each branch gateway as all security, routing and management functions are conducted within a single appliance.

When it comes to security, Fortinet offers the full gamut of tools including application control, web filtering, antivirus, intrusion detection and advanced threat detection. Perhaps this is why Fortinet is the only vendor with security capabilities to receive the SD-WAN recommended rating in the First NSS Labs Software-Defined WAN Test Report. Because cost savings is a primary motivation for companies to explore SD-WAN opportunities, FortiGate SD-WAN shows that you can have your cake and eat it too.

Aruba Branch

Aruba is the same company that improved the visibility, security, and management capabilities of your wireless network and now wants to apply those same standards of visibility, control, simplicity, and security to the WAN. In the same way that their enterprise wireless platform solutions can control and react to your highly dynamic wireless environments, Aruba’s SD-WAN solution uses contextual data and awareness to dynamically route traffic across the WAN based on user, device, or group affiliation. Whether it is data, video, voice, or IoT, Aruba can protect and optimize all of your traffic patterns, LAN and WAN alike. Traffic segmentation, isolation and path selection are enforced for not just the last mile of connectivity, but the entire route from device to WAN exit point.

Like the previous vendors, Aruba’s solution is centered around software defined architecture that combines multiple virtual network functions into their SD-Branch appliance. Aruba’s branch gateway appliance connects to all WAN uplinks and provides an SD-WAN overlay fabric that makes application management and deployment a snap. Gateway functions include stateful firewall capabilities, IPsec encryption, VPN, QoS and WAN path monitoring. SD-Branch integrates with Aruba Central that provides single pane of glass visibility and manageability for all of your locations. But integration isn’t just about Aruba. The company’s security partner program has more than 140 technology partners, all of whom provide added functionality and innovation to an already powerful and proven platform.

Conclusion

Every mile of connectivity for your application traffic is important. The last mile is no less important than the first. Each of these vendors have proven solutions to optimize and secure the total connectivity arteries of your WAN. Each of these solutions brings agility and security to any WAN environment, making your WAN, a fully controlled and optimal environment. Talking to a trusted technology partner like WEI can help you see which SD-WAN strategy would be the best fit for your organization.

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• Perform health check assessments
• Enforce access control policies
• Conduct remediation tasks in many cases

BYOD

NAC is most commonly perceived as a solution for bring your own device (BYOD) environments. While there are other applications for NAC, there are good reasons why it is used for BYOD. NAC solutions are usually associated today with BYOD environments because users regularly bring external devices into the enterprise, consider a higher educational institution. is the leading NAC solution today that provides a self-service portal that guides users through the process of connecting personal or non-enterprise devices without IT involvement or intervention.

IoT Devices

But the need for NAC solutions such as ClearPass exceed far beyond BYOD environments. It isn’t just mobile that is rapidly increasing the attack surfaces of enterprises today. It’s also those little black box like devices that are cropping up throughout companies and organizations, otherwise known as IoT devices. These non-standardized devices are difficult to identify because there are so many types of devices and they’re manufactured by so many different vendors. And then there is the issue of security, of course! According to Peter Newton, senior director of product marketing at Fortinet, “Many IoT devices are inherently untrustworthy because they weren’t designed with security in mind due to their low cost.” He goes on to refer to them as “headless,” meaning that these devices often lack any authentication or methodology to log on to the device. As a result of companies deploying so many IoT device types throughout their networks at an accelerating pace, companies such as Aruba, Fortinet and Cisco have introduced next generation NAC solutions that are designed to accommodate device conglomerations of all types, IoT being one of them.

There is no doubt that IoT devices are a different breed of device and concern about their inherent vulnerabilities is a legitimate concern in the IT community. According to a survey posted in CSO Magazine in September of 2018, only 10 percent of IT managers reported being fully confident that they knew all of the IoT devices on their networks. An alarming 64 percent responded that they either had no level of confidence or very little. In a recent Ponemon Institute’s report concerning the era of IoT and the security gap it contributes to, 66 percent of respondents say their organizations are unable to or have a low ability to secure their IoT devices and apps. Only 24 percent of respondents say their organization’s IoT devices are appropriately secured with a proper security strategy in place. More than half stated that visibility was essential for detecting attacks and 41 percent said that NAC is important for addressing IoT risks.

Both and ClearPass each have NAC solutions that use “collectors” in order to discover all endpoints on your network rather than relying on a database or endpoint agents. These collectors or data sources include but are not limited to RADIUS, SNMP, DHCP and LDAP. An example of the many data sources that uses is shown below.

Both ClearPass and FortiNAC then create profiles for each device in order to identify, categorize it and even create separate security domains for them. This ability to segment IoT devices increases the security of the network and therefore the confidence in the enterprise. With a NAC solution, the issues of who, when, where and how IoT devices are connect to your network are no longer unanswered questions. NAC goes beyond adding clarity and visibility however. NAC also conducts pre and post connection assessments of all access controlled devices according to policies that enforce security measures in dynamic fashion according to slated criteria.

Traditional Networks

Although mobile and IoT devices get most of the focus when discussing NAC, solutions such as Aruba ClearPass are ideal for securing wired traditional networks as well. Rather than using the cumbersome process of MAC filtering in order to secure switch ports, ClearPass uses a single RADIUS 802.1x authentication solution to ensure that only authorized devices and users can connect to your network drops. Today’s NAC solutions can provide visibility into your VPN connections as well, identifying remote devices to better secure your network.

Conclusion

The concept of access control may seem overly simple and old fashioned, but keeping intruders and unauthorized parties out is at the core of any type of security strategy. The concept of NAC today is the same as it was more than a decade ago, yet the justification and rationalization for implementing a NAC solution is even more relevant today. You could say that NAC is back, a proven technology that is ideally suited for today’s mobile and IoT environments. Talking to a technology partner like WEI can help organizations get started with NAC.

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