From multi-location enterprises to schools dispersed across multiple buildings and campuses, the challenge of achieving rapid-fire collaboration, communication and data exchange between both external partners and internal personnel is expanding. As network traffic increases, data throughput and information flow can be greatly diminished if network equipment and systems aren’t highly intuitive and adaptable.
Add to this concern the pressure to maintain security, and to ensure end-to-end visibility, reporting and management across the network, and the problem intensifies. No longer are simple port and protocol blocking at the firewall’s perimeter acceptable security for networks, especially those operating across distributed organizations. Companies need deep traffic and data packet inspection, including internally routed traffic, to thwart the current generation of threats.
Furthermore, organizations that attempt to pursue network upgrades with the goal of increasing both performance and security are often faced with a mind boggling array of choices and time-consuming, complicated selection, configuration and administration activities.
A New Breed of Firewalls, Routers and Access Points
The good news is that an elite group of technology developers is now offering advanced hardware and software that addresses every one of these challenges. In the area of firewalls, for example, it is possible to find a product that provides the highest level of security—including application control, intrusion alerting (IPS) and identity-based policy enforcement—paired with an intelligible, browser-based dashboard view and quick, easy configuration.
They also have the ability to work across disparate environments and locations, unifying complex organizational structures under a common umbrella of security and performance.
More than mere defense mechanisms, these solutions may also enable management to leverage integrated features, to help ensure employee compliance. For example, internal traffic monitoring can identify activities by in-house personnel that, while not outright security threats, might be inappropriate or unpermitted.
One of LMI’s partners, Fortinet, is an example of such a vendor. Known for its advanced firewalls, routers and access points, Fortinet offers one firewall (the FortiGate 100D), that provides robust, Gigabit performance and superior functionality along with stringent internal and external security and daily, email-based reporting. It lets companies create simple, unambiguous rules about both applications and user groups, greatly reducing the administrative burden for IT team members that manage security. It is backed by FortiGuard, Fortinet’s extensive global research capability, protecting companies against new and emerging threats and delivering real-time, around-the-clock protection.
Fortinet is only one of our networking equipment partners, all of whom meet LMI’s high standards for security, performance and ease of use. To learn more about other firewalls, routers and access points we recommend and install for our customers, both from Fortinet and from our other respected partners, please give us a call at (770) 491-0343 or send an email to info@lmisystemsinc.com.