October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, making it a timely opportunity to consider the evolving risks businesses face when it comes to keeping their networks reliable and connected.
An unexpected network disruption can create much more than a temporary technical inconvenience. It can quickly affect employees, customers and the bottom line.
Regardless of size or complexity, many organizations can benefit from specialized management of critical network services, including network monitoring, firewalls, routers and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection.
SDN Communications’ Managed Services are designed to help businesses keep their networks running smoothly while providing expertise and oversight that may not be available in-house.
Supporting businesses behind the scenes
Not every business has the resources—or even the need—to employ a team of specialists dedicated to managing its network infrastructure.
SDN’s Managed Services team works closely with customers on the local-area network side of their operations, managing key equipment and helping businesses establish network configurations and policies that support reliable performance.
For many small and mid-sized organizations, this can fill an important gap.
“We have some middle-sized businesses that might have some IT staff that handles their internal applications such as Microsoft Teams, Outlook, etc., but don’t really have that firewall knowledge or resources to secure their network,” said Patrick Weber, SDN’s director of network services.
SDN works with organizations across a range of industries, including financial institutions and manufacturers. Larger organizations may use Managed Services for more complex network environments, including branch locations connecting back to a data center or high-availability network configurations.
While the needs vary from customer to customer, the goal is the same: provide the network expertise and management needed to keep critical business connections operating reliably.
Three ways SDN helps manage networks
SDN’s Managed Services include three primary offerings:
- Firewall Services: SDN deploys and manages firewall solutions for customers, including establishing threat-management policies and helping businesses segment their networks.
- Router Services: SDN provides and manages router solutions that support a customer’s network connectivity.
- DDoS Protection: SDN provides protection designed to help prevent distributed denial-of-service attacks from overwhelming a customer’s internet connection and disrupting normal business operations.
Together, these services give businesses additional expertise and oversight of key components of their network.
Building a more resilient network
Much of the work performed by SDN’s Managed Services team happens behind the scenes.
When onboarding a customer, the team looks at how different parts of the organization’s network are connected and can recommend segmentation between devices such as desktop computers, printers and phones.
Rather than treating all network traffic the same, the team can establish policies that determine which devices or groups of devices can communicate with specific websites, servers or cloud services.
That segmentation can also help limit the potential impact of a problem within one part of the network.
“If a bad actor does happen to get into their network system, they can’t just hop freely across devices which minimizes their attack surface,” Weber said.
SDN also uses monitoring and reporting tools to keep an eye on network activity and identify potential issues. The team reviews intrusion-prevention alerts and other network activity and can identify when a circuit has dropped, coordinating with SDN’s internal network team or an affiliate when necessary.
For customers that require additional redundancy, SDN can also build high-availability network configurations designed to keep critical operations connected.
When the network goes down, so can business
For businesses today, reliable connectivity is increasingly tied directly to the ability to operate.
Cloud-based applications mean employees need an internet connection to access the tools they use every day. Financial institutions rely on connectivity between branch locations and data centers. Manufacturers often depend on connected systems to keep operations moving.
That means an interruption can quickly become more than just an IT problem.
A distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS attack, is one example of how a disruption can affect a business. In a DDoS attack, a business’s internet connection can be overwhelmed with an enormous volume of traffic, making it difficult or impossible for legitimate traffic to get through.
“What ultimately ends up happening is, say you have a one-gig connection out to the internet, for example,” Weber said. “A DDoS attack deliberately floods that connection with traffic to make sure your connectivity is impacted in a way that negatively affects your business operations.”
DDoS attacks can affect organizations of all types and sizes, and their motivations vary. In some cases, attackers use the threat of a DDoS attack as part of an extortion attempt, demanding payment in exchange for stopping the disruption.
Regardless of the motivation, the potential impact is the same: when critical network connectivity is unavailable, employees may be unable to work, customers may be unable to access services and normal business operations can come to a halt—all of which can translate into lost productivity, lost revenue and other costs for a business.
Preparing for the unexpected
As network environments become more complex and businesses are increasingly dependent on connectivity, having the right expertise in place becomes an important part of maintaining reliable operations.
SDN’s Managed Services team works alongside customers to manage critical network infrastructure, monitor activity and identify potential issues—giving businesses access to specialized expertise without requiring them to build it out internally.
The team also works with customers to put network protections and policies in place and can recommend ways to segment network traffic and devices based on the organization's unique needs.
Ultimately, maintaining a reliable network isn't just about responding when something goes wrong. It's about having the infrastructure and expertise in place to help keep the business connected when it matters most.
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month highlights the importance of understanding today's network risks, it's also a valuable reminder that the consequences of a network disruption can extend well beyond the technology itself.
