Fast, efficient and secure network management with Cisco DNA Center

18 March 2019

Technology review
Hybrid Cloud

By Andy Van Wichelen, Senior Network Engineer, Realdolmen

 The era of the static network is over. Today, your company network's configuration is dynamic – depending on the user who logs on. Moreover, this should preferably be automated. Realdolmen relies on Cisco DNA Center for its digital approach to network management.

In classic network management, the configuration of the various ports on a switch is static. This way the user ends up on a subnet where the specific security takes place. This approach involves a lot of manual work for the administrator. They have to log in manually for each switch and perform the configuration. This is still a reasonable task on a small company network. However, large networks have dozens, or sometimes even hundreds of switches. Then all that manual work quickly takes a lot of time and effort.

This is a challenge that Software Defined Access (SDA) is helping to overcome. With SDA, the configuration process is not only automatic, but also dynamic. To put it another way: depending on which user logs on, the user ends up on a different subnet and each time the security is tailored to the user's profile.

Cisco works with intent-based networking, which means the current user's intention causes the right configuration to be retrieved. Cisco DNA Center is the solution that manages Software Defined Access.

Four pillars

The principle of intent-based networking is essentially very simple: aligning the network as closely as possible to the business in terms of security, automation, quality of service and analytics.

  • Security: this is about dynamic access control. Depending on who logs in where, Cisco DNA Center assigns the right security policy. This does not happen on the firewall, but on the switch port. This approach allows finely-meshed security.
     
  • Automation: the network administrator no longer has to manually access each port on each switch. Configuration is automatic, in line with the defined security policies.
     
  • Quality of service: more and more telephone and video traffic runs via the network. Cisco DNA Center ensures that specific applications – such as video conferencing solutions – are given priority. Configuration takes just a few minutes, while on a classic network it is a time-consuming manual job.
     
  • AnalyticsCisco DNA Center is responsible for monitoring the company network. If there is a problem, the network administrator can very easily find the cause.

More efficiency

The major benefit of the whole software defined networking approach lies in the efficiency gains. Thanks to extensive automation, the network manager no longer needs to perform a large amount of repetitive manual work – thus freeing up time for management tasks that really add value to the network.

The built-in analytics make it possible to identify problems more quickly, and it is also much easier to find and implement a solution. The system maintains log data for every client on the network. This allows a company's helpdesk to get to the heart of a problem very quickly.

A first for Realdolmen

Above all, the principle of intent-based networking makes it possible to manage network access more quickly and efficiently, and also more specifically. Realdolmen carried out the first concrete implementation of Cisco DNA Center in Belgium at Huis Madou, the umbrella group of various city and municipality organizations – VVSG, OVSG and GSD-V. The result is already remarkable. The three organizations work on a single network – managed and secured via Cisco DNA Center – while remaining completely separate.

Interested or more info?

Would you like to know more about Cisco DNA Center? Contact us via products@realdolmen.com.

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