WHITE PAPER

Redefining Networks for Small and Medium Enterprises

The requirements from a network are no different for an

SME compared to that of a large enterprise, however unlike
large enterprises they have constraints on ability to exploit
and manage the network coupled with lack of resources and
funds. This is an important paradox that can only be
addressed by a new class of networking solution rather than
existing appliances sold in the market today

©2005-2007 Elina Networks

 Introduction

Information technology (IT) has become a critical component for success of a business, whether it is a small,
medium-size, or large-size organization. The challenges associated with selecting, installing, maintaining, and
managing networks, which form the core of the IT, are particularly acute for small and mid-size organizations,
both private businesses and government agencies.

Unlike most large organizations who can afford to hire a sufficient number of IT professionals or consultants to
achieve their business objectives, most small and mid-size enterprises can not afford the IT skills and
resources to meet their needs.

To complicate the issue further, the SMEs are forced to work with a range of discrete devices for essential
network services such as routing, switching, security, telephony and remote access. The result is an ever-
expanding number of cascaded devices each of which must be managed separately. This profusion of devices
taxes the abilities of the enterprise to build a secure and reliable network that can be easily supported and
managed. Capital and operating expenditures are thus under constant pressure to support a non-optimal
solution that simply does not keep pace with the evolution of their networking requirements.

Network definition with cascaded devices

A typical IT infrastructure today has six or seven discrete

appliances—firewalls, routers, intrusion detection/prevention
Supervisory Management Tool
systems, VPNs, voice devices, Application Servers and more.
Deploying and managing so many devices is a formidable task.
Unmanaged Unmanaged
Also, adding a new device or application or updating software
Management can have unexpected repercussions since they were never
SNMP / Shell / Webmin

Interfaces
designed to tightly integrate with multiple devices from different
RDP / WMI

vendors. Configuring appliances across multiple services thus

Optimization

can be a serious issue; if one device in the line is reconfigured or

Security
Routing

VoIP

Application Application
updated, it may not work well with the other device. Security and
communications can be at odds with one another, so any change
in the security server may block an application that is critical to
users.
Linux Windows
Proprietory OS
Besides, cascaded devices from multiple vendors result in
Server Server complex networks that are less reliable due to multiple points of
Proprietory HW
failures. These issues reduce the availability of the network,
resulting in high levels of manual intervention by IT support staff.
Less reliable due to multiple
points of failures A solution using multiple devices also impacts operating
expenses in other ways, such as, the inability to make changes
to configurations or upgrade new software, as there are no
Difficult to change automated ways across different vendors/devices. Additionally,
configurations or upgrade new these devices usually must be taken offline for these changes to
software be applied.

Different management Since discrete devices have different management interfaces

interfaces for each individual there is additional cost of training the IT staff. This has led to the
use of third party "management" software that usually offers
device reporting tools and not true device configuration capabilities. The
IT staff therefore, has to manually configure each individual
device and ensure configuration consistency across the
cascade.

©2005-2007 Elina Networks

 Redefining Networks

The requirements from a network are no different for an SME

compared to that of a large enterprise, however unlike large
enterprises they have constraints on ability to exploit and manage
the network coupled with lack of resources and funds. This is an
important paradox that can only be addressed by a new class of
networking solutions rather than existing appliances sold in the
market today.

SMEs are looking to adopt IT if it integrates their business

processes well. They need a solution that enables their
applications to be easily integrated and managed. This requires a
new class of networking solution that has a perfect combination of
network services, application adoptability and remote
manageability. A converged access solution, where data, voice
and mobility services are all available from a single platform and
which is capable of providing secure, reliable, and scalable WAN
and LAN infrastructure in an open framework, is needed.

Some SME Network requirements – which will be key design

criteria for next generation solution, are as follows:

Performance and Reliability

A ground-up design that is
The essence of achieving high performance and reliability is to optimized for its intended
build the solution ground-up that is optimized for its intended functions
environment. This ensures that security functions are not an "add-
on" and works seamlessly. The operating system should have an
An open architecture framework,
open architecture framework, which is flexible enough to
accommodate future needs. which is flexible enough to
accommodate future needs.
Ensuring high performance necessitates having sufficient
processing, memory, and I/O capacity to achieve rated
throughput and reasonable latency. Sufficiently high performance
is a must to support modern applications such as WAN
optimization, advanced content filtering and intrusion
detection/prevention.

The goal of a reliable device is to provide non-disruptive service.

At a minimum, this means that failure of one service does not
affect the remaining functionality of the product. The design also
should minimize the number of moving parts, for example, by
using Flash memory as opposed to a hard drive to store system
software. The device also should support upgrade of any service
on the network without affecting the performance of other
services or the rest of the network.

©2005-2007 Elina Networks

Allows third party application
integration
Adapt to changing needs of the
networks by offering the
flexibility to support both legacy
and next-generation applications
like VOIP
Support for multiple deployment
modes
A comprehensive management
system that administers all the
integrated services available on
the device
Real-time monitoring
Robust logging and reporting
that ensures implementation of
Service Level Agreements
(SLAs)
Automatic updates of system
software, applications, and
associated content
©2005-2007 Elina Networks
Flexibility and Compatibility
The longevity of a solution depends on supporting multiple
options for its software and hardware features alike. A solution
that uses commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) x86 hardware ensures
that enterprises are the benefited by the advances in computing
architectures and associated cost. With an ability to add storage
as needed, the system can also function as a server. This gives
SMEs a uniform application environment that can be easily
managed.
There is also forecasted rapid growth in adoption rates of next
generation services like VoIP among enterprise customers. The
devices should support a number of options including trunk-side
services, to accommodate proprietary IP PBXs and traditional
PBXs or phone systems, hosted PBX applications utilizing IP
phones, and line-side service offerings.
An additional aspect of compatibility to consider is support for
multiple deployment modes. It is important to recognize that a
networking device which meets all of the criteria identified in this
paper should in fact be able to support a number of possible use
cases and, as such, just about fill any role at an enterprise.
Indeed, it could optionally be deployed either as a single-function
device (e.g., firewall, VPN, router) or as a multi-function solution
taking advantage of virtually any combination of its security,
applications, management and networking capabilities.
Comprehensive Management
Reducing initial hardware costs is usually the impetus for
convergence of the device. However, without comprehensive
management capabilities, the benefit of such consolidation would
be significantly eroded. The ease of deployment, which is an
inherent characteristic of converged devices, is significantly less
important than a solution's operational management capabilities.
Hence comprehensive management, or the ability to remotely
manage multiple devices and services at once, is a critical
requirement. This ensures that the enterprise can focus on its
core business functions fully aware that the network functions can
be fully monitored and managed.
The cost of employing and maintaining skilled IT staff by SMEs is
difficult; they also need alternatives to manage their networks.
Therefore the ability to centrally remote manage the networked
sites should be a key requirement.
 The specific capabilities that are necessary for a comprehensive management system for SME
networking device include:

• Unified management, which involves a comprehensive management system that administers all
of the integrated services available on the device.

• Real-time monitoring that is facilitated by views of network status and associated events and
alerts

• Robust logging and reporting that ensures implementation of Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
with a service provider.

• Software maintenance that is facilitated by automatic updates of system software, applications,

and associated content

Conclusion

The network is a strategic business asset. The current generation of networking solutions does not
deliver the features required to provide a reliable, scaleable, flexible, and manageable solution that can
lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the enterprise. The key issues that consume effort, time and
money are infrastructure manageability, service availability and scalability. The constraints of current
generation cascaded devices are at odds with the ability to deliver an infrastructure that is truly cost
effective and reliable.

Elina Networks, through its purpose-built product family ENPAQ and VirtualPresence software which
enables remote management of the work, addresses the requirements of SMEs perfectly. For more
information on Elina products, please send a mail to sales@elinanetworks.com or visit
www.elinanetworks.com

©2005-2007 Elina Networks