The advantages of upgrading to business-grade hardware
Individuals and businesses are critically reliant on internet access daily, and it’s easy to accept the simple option. Phil Tann explores the advantages of upgrading from ISP-provided hardware to business-grade routing and switching.
When you connect to the internet, your connection relies on multiple access pathways and, like all technology, there are advantages to upgrading the hardware. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) typically will provide an all-in-one wireless modem and router option with any new connection. While this is a quick and easy option, it’s far from the most advanced hardware, only meeting the basic needs of most home users.
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For use cases where there are more people and devices connected, there are advantages to upgrading your routing and switching hardware.
Security is just one of the key advantages of business routing hardware, although unseen. This isn’t just in the immediate configurability of the firewall, but the longer term, maintained security of the device providing the Internet gateway and everything behind it in the network.
By investing in higher-quality hardware, your site gains access to support teams and continued firmware upgrades that aren’t common for lower-end hardware. The manufacturers release these regularly to ensure that the devices remain secure and, if a vulnerability is discovered, protect client networks from malicious attacks.
When the networking hardware is increased to a higher level, several other features for networking become available or simpler to implement. One of the big ones that can increase privacy and security within the client network is VLANs. It’s a relatively easy and highly effective way to separate machines, hardware and people that don’t need to be on the same network; one of the simplest examples is to segregate visitors to the network on their own VLAN that only has access to the internet, no other internal data such as servers, network storage or printers.
The above applies to routers and switches, with some specific advantages of upgrading switches. The problem, however, is the broad range of manufacturers, routers, switches, feature sets and compatibility of the options on the market, so much so that it’s almost impossible for a business to handle the rollout in-house without an internal IT team to support the move.
To make more sense of some available options, I spoke with a couple of manufacturers to discuss their offerings and arranged to speak with some of their vendors about the advantages of these options in real-world scenarios.
Routing, switching and wireless: Separate components that all need attention
In discussions with integration and security specialists, the need to separate networking areas has become far more apparent, including how it can potentially offer cost savings and operational continuity to the business in the long run.
By separating these from an all-in-one solution into individual components, a business’ system admins (internal or contractor) have an easier-to-segment connectivity pathway with reduced single points of failure for example:
- You can lose internet connectivity to the outside world but maintain internal functionality.
- You can lose WiFi, which is inconvenient, but maintain Ethernet for most internal workflows to continue.
- You can – internal setup dependent – lose some hardwired connections but still maintain your workflow through WiFi.
All of these would instantly be disabled in the event of an all-in-one device failure.
Exploring some of the benefits further, a stand-alone router has a couple of advantages worth exploring, starting with the fact that all it needs to do is handle the internet connection and internal routing. This results in better throughput, performance and authentication handling for VPN connections into your premises. It also means that your network now only has a few ports to connect to devices; not driving WiFi also.
This is where a managed switch comes into play: being able to handle internal traffic at high throughput while keeping differing staff, guest and hardware cohorts separated. VLANs can form a critical part of some business security needs, keeping people, machines and sensitive data in their silos without restricting their access to other resources such as required data storage, email and the internet.
A managed switch also introduces new security potential that an unmanaged switch cannot deliver. This includes features such as captive portals or black hole VLANs for unidentified users and hardware.
VLAN introduction is very practical, and having a quality router with a well-configured firewall is a must to prevent network breaches; that doesn’t stop someone from attending your premises and physically plugging in a device to your network.
This, too, can be solved with managed switching and routing using options such as a captive portal for new devices or port security on switches. By simply disabling a port through the administrative interface of your switch, even if someone does plug a device in, they won’t get any data flow. This can be taken a step further by introducing allowed clients on the network, identifying them in the switch by MAC address.
Finally, by installing stand-alone WiFi access points, businesses (and homes if they choose to do so) will enjoy greater WiFi performance. The access point handles the connection and data transfer, while the switch reads the access point as an Ethernet – whether it be independently powered or PoE – device and treats it like all the others. This reduces the load on all components within the network and allows each device to do just one job and do it well.
Business network hardware: Choosing options in a crowded market can be difficult, so taking expert advice is worthwhile
D-Link Nucleus is just one of the options on the market that offers cloud-configurable networking options with one-touch configuration and easy monitoring and management of deployed hardware across multiple sites from a single interface.
To explore some of the advantages of having business-grade hardware in place, both for the client site and integrator, Centre Fit director and chief executive, Mark Pearce, tells me about their reasoning for utilising D-Link business-grade hardware and the advantages they get from the relationship.
Mark highlights the key selling points that his team uses to market products and move their clients away from ISP-provided hardware, which focuses on three key areas:
- Security and management of network
- Long-term product viability
- Return on investment through increased uptime and quicker turnaround for failed hardware.
The key area and first item that came forward when asked what the key selling points of the upgrade were was security. This is a multi-faceted discussion with several areas that clients need to consider.
Regarding the hardware, Mark says: “They’re simply provided with some hardware, and ‘it works’ with no advice to even make simple changes like changing the default admin login password or the WiFi password to their network.”
Rather than simply taking over the management of the network, Mark believes that one of the failings of some companies is the lack of education for their users. Simple tasks to protect themselves – most of which are managed by Centre Fit — include updating firmware on their network hardware, a point made strongly by BAE Systems senior security analyst Paul Beadle when I previously spoke with him about securing connected hardware. There are other simple security measures, like adhering to best practices regarding password complexity, that Centre Fit also work through with clients.
Conversely, Centre Fit takes the approach of user education and management of networks, which helps justify some of the network management costs by educating users about the protection they’re getting.
There are many potential brand offerings in the networking space for businesses, including Cisco, Fortinet, MikroTik, Draytec, HP, TP-Link, Ubiquiti and Synology, to name a few. Each has its own – variation on the theme – control software, the potential need for training and – similar core – different capabilities for connectivity and controls over the network.
One facet of our discussion that was interesting to me and shows the alignment of values in business was a comment from Mark regarding accessibility, his business’ brand loyalty to D-Link and the support expectations he has on hardware:
“We don’t sell anything to our customers we can’t remotely support,” he says.
“What we get from D-Link is a level of support we’ve never had from any other manufacturer. I can’t stress how important the level of support is from D-Link to me, ensuring my customers never suffer – the relationship is vitally important to my business.”
He notes that the support from D-Link includes the option to get a person on the phone at any time during business hours and get specific product support as required. This is a protection that both Mark and his customers enjoy, as it results in a far quicker turnaround for support needs and resolution to issues and, ultimately, provides a return on investment through the rapid redeployment of hardware in the event of something failing.
To test this theory, D-Link provided some testing hardware, which Mark remotely supported the installation of. This included setting up two wireless access points and a managed switch with VLAN provision to separate different hardware types within the network.
As part of this demonstration, it became clear how the Nucleus hardware setup would scale easily and very well to suit a business with multiple locations – allowing monitoring of the network health holistically and individual hardware components. This allows proactive hardware monitoring and faster response to networking issues and hardware failure, sometimes fixing it remotely before the client is even aware of an emerging issue.
This collective capability of the system is something that Mark and his team have used to their advantage in providing a great customer experience to a number of their client sites, including Snap Fitness, where they were awarded supplier of the year recently, a wellness facility at Newstead and a couple of well-known sporting clubs.
These are sites that have over 25 access points, multiple switches throughout the facilities and, of course, different routing needs for the different sites. This creates complexities with support, but nothing that good documentation can’t overcome with – some details redacted to maintain site security – a copy of network documentation provided as an example of the type of details kept on file.
The versatility and scalability of the Nucleus system means that it’s capable of working for a small business with individual components working stand alone, for a larger business integrated into the central management or being managed and monitored remotely in either situation.
The purchase of business-grade routing, switching and WiFi equipment isn’t going to be something that everyone understands the necessity for. But with some education, it’s certainly something that many businesses will come to accept the need for. At the end of the day, the increased functionality of the network, security to protect your systems and data and the longevity and faster replacement of failing or failed hardware far outweigh the costs involved.
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