Research Hub > Is Your IT Infrastructure Connected or Integrated?

December 12, 2019

Article
5 min

Is Your IT Infrastructure Connected or Integrated?

Oftentimes, IT can be siloed

Is Your IT Infrastructure Connected or Integrated?

Oftentimes, IT can be siloed. But no single person knowseverything and no manufacturer is the best at everything. That's whyorganizations need a holistic strategy to ensure the performance and securityof their infrastructure and to cope with the management challenges of highlydistributed applications, data users and devices.

As Cisco has stated It should be possible for IT andbusiness intent to be expressed in one domain and then exchanged, enforced, andmonitored across all of them.

In other words, you should be able to define once, enforceand monitor anywhere with any user and any application.

4 elements of anintegrated network

An integrated, connected IT infrastructure includes the followingkey elements.

Automation - Automateidentity-access management from users to applications to reduce human error andprovide more consistent performance.

Assurance - Helpensure a great application experience through continuous monitoring and verification.

Threat detection& mitigation - Identify problems faster by correlating applications anddata. Automate visibility, threat detection, and mitigation across all domains.

Consistent policy- Extend consistent access control to all sites of the organization acrosswired and wireless networks to allow users to work from anywhere they choose.

How to benefit fromnetwork integration

Offering a consistent, connected experience across all usersand applications can provide your organization with the following benefits.

Agility - Throughautomation and open APIs, new business requirements can more easily be capturedand translated into policy.

Efficient operations- After network operators express intent, translation into policy andconfigurations is automated.

Better alignment tobusiness intent - Continuously validate policy alignment and recommendadjustments to meet your business' changing needs.

Improved compliance- Advanced segmentation, policy enforcement, rapid threat detection andcontainment help provide corporate security and compliance.

Reduced security risk- Abstractions, automation and assurance reduce inconsistencies and outagesacross the network.

Whether you get best-in-breed point products and integratethem or find a manufacturer that has products in multiple domains and negotiatean agreement that rewards your loyalty, integration is critical in ensuring youget the most out of your IT. To learn how CDW can help you maximize your datacentre and network infrastructure, visitthis page.