Stable, Flexible and Fast
The network infrastructure is the backbone of any company. Not only does a functional network connect systems and computers but it also influences the operational performance of all components. Companies need a cost-effective, high-performance wired and wireless network infrastructure that is secure and supports the growing number of mobile devices and cloud-based applications. With our know-how and many years of experience in the field of network management, we support you in developing a well thought-out, holistic solution, no matter whether you are a small, medium or large company, with or without deep IT knowledge.
01A reliable network forms the basis for expansion and growth.
02High availability for a failure-tolerant infrastructure.
The Network Is the Basis for Your IT Services
.
The continuous alignment with dynamic business operations, processes and ways of working constantly pose new challenges to IT departments.
With the increasing number of complex tasks and technologies employed, there is a growing desire for automated processes that simplify the use of networked systems. By the same token, automation is an important component for stable environments and ensures the accuracy of the data.
- Our specialists help you with the right design in simple as well as complex environments.
- Our verification also includes continuous monitoring that detects typical configuration errors and verifies that company standards are met.
- Automation of standardised, laborious or complex processes/operations
.
Core Areas
-
DDI (DHCP, DNS, IP Address Management)
Core network services managed, transparent and automated
DDI (DHCP, DNS, IP Address Management)
Our partners: Infoblox .
DDI stands for DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management. A DDI solution centralises the management of just these core network services and unifies the management of IP addresses, address ranges, and any resource records and objects.
The complexity of a network infrastructure increases substantially as an organisation grows. This complicates the management of the core network services DNS and DHCP. Without a functioning DNS system, all communication on the network breaks down. If the DHCP service fails, clients can no longer access the network.
Closely related to DNS and DHCP is IP address management. Manual maintenance and management of IP address information no longer makes sense once a network reaches a certain size. The effort as well as the probability of errors increases with the complexity of a network.
With our DDI management solution, administrators gain visibility and control over the network infrastructure. Network resource management is simplified to the maximum. Configuration errors when using tables for management of IP addresses are completely avoided. Our solutions help you simplify many tasks and run a fail-safe, efficient and low-maintenance system.
- Simplify network resource management
- Preserve operational availability and mission-critical systems
- IPv4, IPv6 and dual stack available
- Monitoring of network resources
- Saving time in managing mission-critical services
- Security through the use of additional modules (DNS Firewall, ADP, BloxOne Threat Defence, etc.)
.
.
.
-
Configuration & Change Management
Control over system configurations
Configuration & Change Management
Our partners: Infoblox, Tufin
Change is an enduring constant in the workplace, especially in the age of digital transformation. Restructuring, business process adjustments and process efficiencies all impact IT.
Network infrastructure, as the dynamic backbone of an enterprise, is changing every day: Capturing new VLANs on the switch, adjusting the ruleset on the firewall or implementing new systems. It is time-consuming to maintain the appropriate structure for often chaotic change processes in organisations.
By using our change management tools, you can keep track of configuration changes and immediately identify the cause in the event of a failure. In doing so, hand-written documentation or manual upkeep is a thing of the past.
SIDARION offers you tools for automatic configuration monitoring and backup, linking changes in the configuration to the request in the (existing) change management system.
- Easily compare historical and current configurations
- Traceability of implemented changes
- Source of the changes
.
.
-
Network Discovery
Gain agility and transparency
Network Discovery
Our partners: macmon, Infoblox
How well do you know your network infrastructure? Are you familiar with the small switch in the test environment? What port is it connected to? What you can’t see can hurt. Network Discovery is a process that exposes and simplifies the connectivity and intercommunication between network devices on a private network.
It consolidates all your network infrastructure and service data into a single, comprehensive and reliable database. You are thus able to retrieve information about the devices, the host IP address or about the switch port, among others, in the shortest possible time. The extensive automation, centralised transparency and integrated management functions give you greater agility and control. This enables you to meet the changing needs of your business while achieving significant time and cost savings.
-
Network Automation
Increase speed and efficiency
Network Automation
Our partners: Infoblox, Tufin, RedHat, Cumulus Networks
Increasing demands on network technology lead to heightened infrastructure complexity. More and more business processes are going digital. Resource-intensive applications and services or cloud solutions are being implemented and the IT department is challenged. Automating repetitive processes and tasks yields cost and time resource savings. At the same time, productivity is increased, standardisation is achieved and auditability is improved.
Automation eliminates tedious repetitive tasks and at the same time reduces the number of errors caused by manual intervention. In addition, with automation you have the option of making changes across multiple devices simultaneously or speeding up the collection of data. Recurring tasks such as logging in on each individual device, modifying the configuration, saving and downloading are performed automatically.
In addition to automating everyday processes, our partners also offer solutions for security policy orchestration. This is a new model for automated implementation of changes within network infrastructures. Process changes are automated and application and service delivery is accelerated.
-
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Decoupling of hardware and software
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Our partners: RedHat, Cumulus Networks, Fortinet, Ansible
In a highly heterogeneous network, with distributed intelligence across devices from different vendors, controlling the components as a whole becomes a challenge. Using SDN reduces the complexity and management overhead of the network. There is a separation between the hardware and the control plane.
The management and control of the network components is done from a central controller (control plane), which has all the intelligence. Accordingly, the hardware is only responsible for forwarding the data packets (data plane) and receives the instructions for its tasks from the controller. The devices function as routers or switches and perform the tasks on layer 3 or layer 2. In addition to switching and routing, other services such as firewalling and load balancing can also be controlled in a software-defined manner. The use of the hardware is manufacturer independent.
The central location of the network intelligence eliminates the need to configure individual devices or operating systems. This minimises management and maintenance efforts while increasing flexibility and stability.
The use of SDN is particularly interesting for larger environments. However, the use of SDN can also be worthwhile for smaller or medium-sized companies.
Project Sidarion:
SDN in the financial sector
Even in the financial sector, it is important to keep IT costs low and employee efficiency high, while maintaining quality. For a Swiss bank, we were engaged to renew the switching environment and we relied on open source products such as Cumulus, Ansible and Netbox.
Netbox is considered the source-of-truth and provides the requirements for the infrastructure via an API. With Ansible, these requirements are queried and distributed to the network infrastructure. CumulusLinux on EdgeCore switches has proven to be a very good platform for this.
The result is a layer 2 infrastructure configurable via a central GUI that is easy to use, has automated validation, and is free of configuration errors. As a nice side effect, there is no need to document the network, as the current configuration of all switches can be viewed with a few clicks. The code is freely available at https://github.com/Sidarion/netbox-joined-inventory.
-
WAN Optimisation
Enlarge the bottleneck
WAN Optimisation
Our partners: Riverbed, Fortinet .
Limited WAN bandwidth repeatedly causes data transmission bottlenecks. By means of network traffic management applications, this problem can be mitigated.
Traffic management systems enable the monitoring and optimisation of IP networks. They analyze all data traffic and ensure that prioritised or time-critical applications such as Citrix and VoIP receive the bandwidth they need. Integrated solutions also include functions such as data compression, traffic shaping and data traffic optimisation. This allows the transmission speed – and consequently the available bandwidth – to be significantly increased, resulting in a sustainable reduction in network costs. In addition, extensive monitoring and reporting functions create a high degree of transparency and thus help to optimise the management of the network infrastructure.
So-called Unified Performance Management (UP) systems contain an integral set of functions that address the following needs:
- Providing visibility and control of bandwidth allocation and prioritisation of urgent and critical applications
- Metering and deprioritisation of non-time-critical traffic
- Detection and blocking of non-essential and/or security-critical traffic
- Compression of traffic
- Acceleration of data traffic or reduction of transmission-related delays and wait times
- Reservation of bandwidth for defined applications
.
.
.
.
.
-
Reporting and Analysis
Collect, visualise, analyse
Reporting and Analysis
Our partners: Infoblox, Fortinet
As the technical requirements for your infrastructure increase, so does the risk of external attacks. Maintaining control over a complex network with all its components requires a reliable solution. By using our reporting and analytics solution, you gain insight into the overall picture of your environment. It brings you the reliability and control over your network that you need to make fast and accurate decisions.
The numerous, predefined reports offer a clear and visualised representation of your data. Among other things, they show which user accesses which application and when, and monitor the health of the services, such as DNS and DHCP. The monitoring and measurement of the operational states minimises the response time of the specialists responsible for the system. The affected system can be identified and the problem located in the shortest possible time.
The reporting solution also prepares you in the best possible way for upcoming audits. It supports you in enforcing and complying with (company) regulations. Long-term data retention with automated archiving makes audits faster and more accurate. Predefined reports for network audits, IP addresses, device mappings, switch port usage, detected threats and many others, minimise the time needed for audit preparation.
Consulting & Services
Your own network environment can quickly become unwieldy and static. Don’t let a slow operating environment be a drag on your company’s success. We help you maintain speed and work with you to create flexible, scalable solutions.
-
Concept/Design
Concept/Design
After the current situation has been assessed and the strategy has been agreed upon, the concept is outlined and the design is created. With this approach, we ensure that the project is implemented according to the specifications and that the agreed objectives are achieved. In continuous collaboration with you, we create a solution that meets your needs and fits into your existing IT environment.
All of our specialists work on projects and cover for each other in case of absence. With this approach we guarantee a comprehensive knowledge in the areas of conceptual design, project implementation and troubleshooting. Overall, this helps us to better understand the needs of our customers and thus to provide you with a first-class service.
-
Integration/Implementation
Integration/Implementation
The ability to integrate standard products into your existing environment is one of Sidarion’s special strengths. We help you to automatically synchronise data between systems, to create customised interfaces for routine tasks (e.g. as web GUI) or to implement other requirements.
-
Workshops/Training
Workshops/Training
We train your employees on-site at your location and help you to be able to work with the new solution quickly. This includes the transfer of basic knowledge, product-specific know-how for administration and troubleshooting, as well as the for the support processes of Sidarion and the manufacturer.
In addition, we are happy to offer you the official manufacturer training and certification exams. This way you get to know the product from the manufacturer’s point of view and often see further uses and functions that were previously untapped.
-
Support/Service
Support/Service
The Sidarion support services (SIDcare) include flexible remote maintenance or on-site support of your devices by our specialists. This is an expansion of the scope of delivery and the support subscription. As your local partner with a working knowledge of your system environment, customer-specific features and an in-depth knowledge of the network and security technologies of our products, we are able to help you and solve your problems quickly and efficiently.
-
Maintenance/Operations
Maintenance/Operations
You do not want to take care of operating the infrastructure yourself? No problem, we will gladly take over this work for you. We take care of operations, monitoring, patch management, change management and reporting. We discuss the service status with you at regular intervals and make adjustments on request.
Our partners in the networking field
The often long-standing cooperation with our partners and the constant exchange between our specialists result in optimal solutions tailored to your needs, which protect your network infrastructure with the latest technologies. In doing so, we focus on making the best possible use of the synergies between the individual partners and their products.
Platinum Partner
Next Level Networking – control, management and protection of critical network basic services DNS, DHCP and IP address management. The integrated grid technology guarantees reliable management of the services, provides easy management of the data and provides transparency and monitoring over the entire network.
Expert Partner and Managed Security Service Provider
Next-Generation Firewalling – Fortinet provides intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the ability to meet the ever-increasing performance demands of the borderless network. Fortinet Security Fabric architecture masters the most critical security requirements.
Innovator Partner
Next-Generation Security – Palo Alto Networks is shaping the cloud-centric future with technologies that are transforming the way people and organisations work.
System Integrator partner
Security Management – The company’s patented and award-winning security intelligence platform LogRhythm combines security information and event management, log management, data integrity monitoring, network forensics and host forensics. It guarantees easy and fast threat detection.
Gold Service Delivery Partner
Orchestration Suite – Tufin® is the market leader in Network Security Policy Orchestration. Tufin enables organisations to centrally manage, visualise and control security policies across hybrid environments (cloud, physical networks and virtualized infrastructures). The award-winning Tufin Orchestration Suite™ is a complete solution for automated planning, implementation and auditing of network security changes.
Gold Partner
Network Access Control – Know which devices are on the network and where they are. Any device in use, from PCs to printers, laptops or medical and technical equipment, is identified, efficiently monitored and protected from unauthorised access.
Gold Partner
Performance and Visibility – Riverbed’s network and application performance platform enables organisations to visualise, optimise, accelerate, and quickly troubleshoot the performance of any application on any network.
Referenzen
Networking also in the way we work
The knowledge of our specialists is united under one roof. We all work very closely together and pull together in good times as well as in extraordinary situations.
