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Renewable vitality is a quickly rising section of the vitality trade. Applied sciences similar to wind, photo voltaic, biomass, geothermal, and vitality storage at the moment are thought-about mainstream. Nevertheless, all of those websites require safe connectivity to allow vital distant monitoring and management.
Renewable vitality firms should join an array of renewable vitality property unfold throughout large geographic areas. Many renewable asset operators additionally use private and non-private cloud-based functions, together with SCADA. They want a community structure that’s easy to deploy at scale throughout quite a few distributed websites and but extremely safe to make sure cyber threats don’t influence uptime.
SD-WAN is prepared for prime time with distributed vitality assets
Enterprises have broadly deployed Software program Outlined WAN (SD-WAN) over the previous 10 years to handle related necessities: connecting distant websites utilizing whichever networking know-how is out there, simplifying administration of the infrastructure, providing seamless entry to functions wherever they’re hosted, delivering assurance for functions particularly for distant customers, and providing a really excessive degree of safety all through the community.
Most renewable vitality firms immediately are used to constructing giant networks using applied sciences similar to Web Protocol Safety (IPsec) and Dynamic Multipoint Digital Non-public Community (DMVPN) to encrypt important Supervisory Management and Knowledge Acquisition (SCADA) communications. They’re utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for the underlying transport community, and public or personal mobile for distant websites with no different WAN connectivity.
SD-WAN brings these applied sciences collectively and permits automation to drastically simplify deployments and supply unmatched cybersecurity advantages out-of-the-box:
Safe zero contact deployment of subject gateways, that means no subject employees is required to configure a gateway.
Easy provisioning of service VPNs to segregate site visitors (SCADA, CCTV, IP telephony, and so on.).
Templated configurations making it simple to vary configuration and push it to gateways whereas making certain compliance of all subject property to licensed templates.
Software of unified safety insurance policies throughout a various vary of distant websites and tools.
Managing a number of backhaul connectivity choices on the gateway together with personal MPLS for important SCADA site visitors and mobile for backup and even internet-based connections for non-critical site visitors, the place applicable.
Lifecycle administration of gateways, similar to firmware updates, alarm monitoring and statistics.
Simplifying connecting giant, distributed infrastructures
Deploying an SD-WAN overlay additionally permits the renewable vitality firm to regulate the end-to-end IP addressing schemes and take away the necessity to engineer advanced routing plans based mostly on the underlying transport community, very often offered by a third-party service supplier. This divorces the underlying transport community from the overlay community. Therefore, it simplifies operational duties and offers a safer overlay community for important monitoring and management site visitors.
Wouldn’t or not it’s helpful to have a single resolution with a alternative of commercial ruggedized gateways for various website sorts? We predict so, and Cisco offers a number of industrial routers to swimsuit all deployment websites and may be managed as a part of the Cisco SD-WAN resolution.
Cisco industrial routers such because the Catalyst IR8340 Rugged Collection Routers for bigger websites, Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Collection Routers and Catalyst IR1800 Rugged Collection Routers for smaller websites all function as SD-WAN edge gateways alongside with the well-known Cisco enterprise routers (digital and bodily), which can be utilized for management facilities, cloud places and different operational websites to offer a single overlay community connecting to any website.
Unifying networking and cybersecurity
Cisco’s SD-WAN resolution additionally offers a broad set of cybersecurity options, simplifying coverage creation and deployment to the sting gateways. Superior safety capabilities similar to:
Firewall with utility consciousness (NGFW) to filter site visitors in actual time and supply granular management able to detecting hundreds of functions.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS) with Talos® signatures to determine and block identified threats and malicious actions similar to vulnerability exploits.
Superior malware safety methods, together with signature-based and behavior-based evaluation, to determine and block identified and unknown malware threats.
URL filtering to dam or enable customers to entry URLs based mostly on greater than 80 internet classes protecting hundreds of thousands of domains and billions of webpages.
Safe entry to cloud and web assets with Cisco Umbrella® which mixes safe internet gateway, DNS safety, cloud-delivered firewall, cloud entry safety dealer performance, and risk intelligence to guard in opposition to web threats.
Managing cyber dangers to drive regulatory compliance
Additional to securing the perimeter and connectivity to the renewable vitality website, Cisco offers additional safety instruments that may be leveraged ‘excessive’ to extend the safety posture of the positioning:
Cisco Cyber Imaginative and prescient offers asset homeowners full visibility into gadgets linked to their industrial networks, communication patterns, vulnerabilities, and utility flows to assist assess the OT safety posture. Renewable vitality firms now have exact info to grasp their cyber dangers, implement safety greatest practices, and drive compliance with cybersecurity rules similar to NERC CIP or NIS2.
Cisco Safe Gear Entry (SEA) helps safe distant entry to grid property supplying you with full management over which technician or contractor can remotely entry property for configuration, upkeep, or troubleshooting. It brings all the advantages of a zero-trust community entry (ZTNA) structure to distributed renewable vitality websites, so customers have entry solely to the gadgets you select, utilizing solely the protocols you specify, and solely on the day and time you enable.
Safe your distributed vitality infrastructure with Cisco
In abstract, the Cisco SD-WAN resolution coupled with Cisco Catalyst Industrial Routers and OT safety merchandise could be very related to renewable vitality networks and may help simplify deployment at scale whereas providing superior cybersecurity capabilities. Study extra about it within the resolution overview we lately printed. I’ve additionally mentioned it in additional particulars in a current webinar, which now you can watch on-demand. We’ll be completely happy that can assist you construct the safe SD-WAN infrastructure you’ve been ready for.
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