Secure Management

Today's stringent security and compliance requirements put unprecedented pressure on IT staff to ensure complete control and accountability over the IT infrastructure. As networks have become more geographically distributed, complex and business-critical, it has become more challenging to control who has access to network devices and servers, to control what they are doing with these devices during production and maintenance windows, and to accurately report on all user interactions in order to satisfy security and compliance audits.

These risks emerge most obviously during a network outage or disruption, when security postures and auditing are often relaxed in favor of restoring service quickly to the affected users, despite the business risks those decisions create. Security concerns take on even more importance when working with third party outsourcers and service providers that are often granted broad system access to perform maintenance and recovery operations.

To ensure compliance, three key requirements must be met:

• Accountability - When a change is made, who is responsible and are they authorized to make the change?
• Transparency - Is there an audit trail of all user interactions, during both production and maintenance windows?
• Measurability - What is the impact of the changes being made, both authorized and unauthorized?

Secure Management Capabilities

Uplogix addresses these accountability, transparency and measurability requirements, even during network outages, by providing a secure remote management platform that:

• Maintains and enforces AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting), regardless of the state of the network. Under normal circumstances, the Uplogix Envoy integrates with remote authentication mechanisms, such as TACACS and Radius, but if connectivity is lost, the appliances rely on cached authentication data to maintain authorized access.
• Prevents unauthorized user access by automatically closing idle console sessions, eliminating another important security gap. Envoy also ensures that the right users have the right access by enforcing granular, role-based permissions.
• Utilizes the strongest security, encryption and authentication standards on the market today, including SHA-1 password hashing, 3DES encryption, SSHv2, and Certificate Authentication support.
• Delivers the reporting data you need to pass security & compliance audits by logging all changes made to managed devices and the results of these changes, even when the primary network connection is unavailable. Logs are inspected in real-time and Envoy can take automated corrective actions based on log patterns if desired.