Beyond private networks: virtual community networks

This buzz session at Orange Business Live was led by Dennis Kruse and we'll be doing a video with him later on during Orange Business Live on this topic. So we will update this story in due course.

 

The main trust of this buzz session was that the nature of business is changing with collaboration between companies, their business partners, their suppliers and their customers becoming ever more important. This requires that networks change: virtual private networks alone no longer meet business requirements. What companies need instead are virtual community networks, which are nodal rather than star, and cope with mobile workforces, instead of just being focused on client server applications.

 

Security is one of the biggest challenges to virtual community networks. How do you protect networks where people are working out of the office, or where you don't have control over guests to your network, or the devices they bring in? This is the problem of de-perimeterisation, which was highlighted by industry body the Jericho Forum several years ago. It highlighted that traditional perimeter security such as firewalls are no longer enough for these modern networks.

 

To ensure security in these environments, businesses need to use multi-layered security and look to protect their confidential data. One of the advantages of this new approach to security is that companies can be protected on all networks - including the Internet. This is driving the popularity of dual network approaches incorporating MPLS IPVPNs and the Internet. Other important parts of security include securing mobile devices and applications through SSL-VPNs.