ConSentry LANShield Delivers Business Context for Applying Policy, Radically Simplifying LAN Deployment and Operations

Bringing disruptive innovation to the LAN access edge, ConSentry® Networks today introduced its Intelligent Switching architecture, a breakthrough in user and application control implemented through a new release of the field-proven ConSentry LANShield™ Switch.  Deployed in the wiring closet for the tightest control, Intelligent Switching integrates user, role, and application knowledge with a programmable, wire-speed switching platform to allow IT to bring business context into the LAN, dramatically simplify deployment and operations, and keep pace with evolving business requirements.

The following new LANShield Switch features provide support for Intelligent Switching in the LAN:

• Application-based quality of service (QoS) at Layer 7
• Increased control of Web-based applications and instant messaging (IM)
• Complete LAN visibility by user, role, server, and file
• Automatic device and role discovery, drawing from existing identity stores
• New security and policy features to protect against MAC spoofing and avoid static IP address mapping of web destinations

ConSentry customer Adaptec (NASDAQ:ADPT) has standardized on ConSentry’s Intelligent Switching to replace existing Cisco access switches across its global operations.  “The value of having this degree of user and application intelligence integrated into our wiring closet switch is key,” said Lou Owayni, global network and telecom manager at Adaptec.  “With LANShield, when new users are placed in Active Directory, I can safely and automatically add them to the LAN and implement access controls with a single touch. This simple deployment improves efficiency and reduces our TCO tremendously.  We also can automatically track where users go and what resources they need to perform their roles, which helps me better manage application performance and develop policies that map to real business practices.”

Legacy LAN Architectures Cannot Support Intelligent Switching

Today’s IT organizations are being asked to simultaneously support a more dynamic, collaborative, and diverse workforce; rapidly roll out new LAN services such as VoIP and wireless; and optimize application performance to ensure high user productivity, all while protecting corporate assets and logging user activity in detail.

The legacy access-switch architecture complicates these tasks because it operates on IP addresses and Layer 3/Layer 4 ports and has no inherent understanding of users, user roles, devices, applications, or the interplay of these factors.  IT must create and maintain complex VLANs and ACLs and/or deploy third-party applications and devices to implement even the most basic user and application control. To align LAN operations with business needs requires smarter networks that have the processing performance and native understanding of users and applications to deliver complete control, right in the wiring closet.

ConSentry’s LANShield Switches incorporate an Intelligent Switching architecture that combines a multi-threaded, multi-core, custom packet processor with enterprise-class merchant switch silicon and a mature software suite to provide detailed Layer 7 visibility and dynamic control of users and applications across the LAN.

The research firm Gartner has  defined the five dimensions of network design as access/location, user, application, device, and activity. “Network architects must understand these dimensions to effectively build a next-generation network,” said Mark Fabbi, vice president, distinguished analyst, Gartner. “Beyond designing around these elements, IT needs a way to implement controls based on them, and enabling these dimensions in a switch allows that control to be pervasive. Given the changing nature of traffic patterns in today’s LANs, with less traffic following a hub-and-spoke design and an increase in peer-to-peer applications, that control is best implemented at the user edge.”

Intelligent Switching Addresses Today’s LAN Requirements, Fulfills Founding Vision

ConSentry was founded to deliver the next generation of switching platforms, and the company has spent the last two years tuning its systems to support the most demanding LAN applications, such as wire-speed access security.  Now the company has extended its support to the full range of user and application control in a high-performance, intelligent switch that leapfrogs legacy architectures.

The ConSentry LANShield Switch authenticates users and devices against standard identity stores and automatically learns their roles. Then for each traffic flow, i