Cisco Borderless Network Architecture

Businesses today are increasingly identifying thechanging needs of on the go employees, whowant to have anytime anywhere access to thecorporate data and applications. This calls for a re-lookinto their network architecture and extending businessborders. One such network architecture is being offeredby Cisco called Borderless Network Architecture whichis built upon five network services as mentioned be-low.All these borderless network services are builtwithin the switching, routing, security, wireless and WideArea App Services products. It's the integration of theseservices into existing network infrastructure and theircontrol via policy and management that enables a borderless experience to occur.

Medianet : Business environments are seeing an in-flux of networked video devices onto the IP networkand need for video applications are raising new re-quirements in terms of bandwidth. But the traditionalIP networks are not really well equipped to deal withinteractive and real-time requirements. The Medianettechnologies deliver the media-aware end point-aware,and network-aware capabilities that conventional IPnetworks lack. A Medianet is intelligent network opti-mized for rich media and can format video to bestmatch the characteristics of the end device.

Application Velocity : Businesses are increasinglyfacing application performance demands for bothlegacy and new cloud based applications to deliver ex-cellent user experience. Also enterprise-computing ap-plications are being demanded and stretched overincreasingly borderless networks. Application velocityis a bunch of application performance technologiesthat leads to improved performance to applicationsbased upon endpoint capability, access bandwidth andgeographic access location. Application Velocity has adiscovery mechanism that finds and identifies applica-tions in use and once identified, their performance canbe measured, baselined, and monitored.

EnergyWise : This technology utilizes network as aplatform for energy command and control, allowing thenetwork to manage the power of more than 70 percentof a building. What the network does is that, it discov-ers Cisco EnergyWise manageable devices, monitorstheir power consumption, and takes action based onbusiness rules to reduce power consumption. The tech-nology uses a network-based “query” system to summa-rize information from large sets of devices, making itsimpler than traditional network mgmt capabilities.

Mobility solutions : Cisco provides unified commu-nications solutions that unify voice, video, data, andmobile applications on fixed and mobile networks, en-abling easy collaboration every time from any work-space. Other mobile applications that they offerinclude unified mobility, unified mobile communicatorand WebEx meeting centre. The Cisco AnyConnectSecure Mobility Solution is a multifunctional securityclient that supports security services such as SSL andIPsec remote-access VPN, 802.1X, and secure mobil-ity integration with ScanSafe. Both the user and devicemust be authenticated and validated prior to being pro-vided access to the network. For devices to be authen-ticated, they have to comply with corporate policiesand have up-to-date security in place.

TrustSec : This technology is an identity-enablednetwork access architecture that helps customers en-able secure collaboration, strengthen security, and ad-dress compliance requirements. It dynamicallyprovides role-based access; noncompliant devices arequarantined, remediated, or denied access. Also spon-sored guests receive restricted access to specific re-sources (Internet, printers, etc.) through a customizedweb portal. Internal network access is blocked, and ac-tivity is tracked and reported. Non-user devices (print-ers, cameras, phones, etc.) are centrally discovered andaccess is provided based on policy, and device behavioris monitored and audited to prevent spoofing.