Page 54 - Cyber Defense eMagazine forJune 2021

As much as “try turning it off and turning it back on” has become a running joke when it comes to IT
support, rebooting a router is still the best way to fix it, but most on-site network teams are relatively
small, and most truck rolls can cost a company upwards of $1,000 – and that’s only if that “truck” doesn’t
end up being an airline ticket. Either way, it could take 10 minutes or 10 hours, but with a comprehensive
independent plane management platform, you can easily remove all of that uncertainty and have your
network back up and running in no time.

When it comes to security, the independent management plane also provides additional peace of mind
in the face of potential security breaches that have become an increasingly frequent and severe threat to
organizations throughout every industry:

• Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FBI has reported a 300 percent increase in
cybercrimes.
• Between January and April of 2020, could-based cyber attacks rose by 630 percent.
• According to International Data Corporation, there will be 55.7 billion connected devices in the
world by 2025, 75 percent of which will be connected to the Internet of Things (IoT)

If all of your network’s administration or management ports are connected to the production network and
an attack occurs, IT infrastructures are exposed and can be accessed. However, if the port is connected
to an out-of-band management system, the LAN can’t access any administration consoles on that
equipment, making it extremely secure. Since it separates management traffic and the user, engineers
can lock down parts of the network, restrict access, and secure the management plane.

While the idea of an independent management plane is relatively new in this particular form, part of the
beauty of it is that it depends on older – but ultimately more reliable – technology. For years, network
teams used Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines to access routers’ serials ports, which, other than
physically rebooting it on-site, is the best way to access a locked device. With the advent of 3G – and
subsequently faster – cellular speeds, it’s become possible to proactively monitor and remediate those
same devices because the entire platform is now IP-based, which means it can send SMS or email alerts
as well.

The development of 4G LTE opened up even more opportunities to create independent network
resilience, especially at the edge. This versatility is even more crucial in the modern landscape, where
most businesses have moved away from the traditional model – office, branch office, distribution center
– and toward remote work models and Internet of Things-enabled devices. Because 4G is stronger and
faster, it allows you to all of the necessary network maintenance from a separate network without
sacrificing any critical edge bandwidth.

The true beauty of an independent management plane is that it can also be used proactively to deploy
new data centers through zero-touch provisioning. With the proper device and pre-determined
configurations, racks of switches can be set up without any significant interaction with the device, whether
those switches are physical or cloud-based. Most of the time, when a network goes down, it’s due to
human error, which is why this type of automation is so important – not only for more efficient

Cyber Defense eMagazine – June 2021 Edition 54
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