Console Management enhances data security at a renowned world banking institution

Choosing appropriate technology to manage large data networks and diverse critical information systems is still one of the most significant challenges for many corporations. Downtime of an information network has high costs. Employees cannot perform their jobs, clients cannot access critical information and potential customers look elsewhere for service. Banking institutions are a classic example of the need for fully available operations. The precise real time mechanics of the financial market means that a continuous and accurate operation of the entire network infrastructure is vital.

It was to address this issue that one of the largest and most renowned international financial institutions contacted Perle Systems. This world banking institution decided to consolidate various head offices into a single financial centre capable of accommodating thousands of workers. The resulting network would have to provide service to various buildings spread out across a large geographical area. The complete network infrastructure of this financial campus was created through a series of Ethernet switches distributed in every building and for which a secure access system would be created, in order to guarantee continuous operations.

The Console Server as a complement to Corporate Security

To provide secure administrator access to the Ethernet switches, 8 port Perle Console Servers were deployed and connected to all Ethernet switches at each campus building. Via the Perle Console Server, the Ethernet switches can be accessed from any geographic point, using either the LAN/WAN network (in-band management) or the public telephone network (Out-of-Band Management). This allows the administrators to maximize the availability of its systems and immediately perform, administrative tasks for configuration or diagnosis and recovery of systems failure.

In addition, the bank can be assured that all data that passes over the network is fully secure and protected. Network traffic contains user names, passwords and critical system information that can be easily captured and read, when passed over the Telnet protocol. Exposure of this data, its possible inappropriate or malicious use, poses a serious risk to the banking industry. The Perle Console Server allows an authorized banking administrator to open a secure channel to each Ethernet switch, encrypt all of the data over SSH or SSL thus guaranteeing its indecipherability.

Summary

The solution provided by the Perle Systems Console Server, is an important complement to corporate security of this financial institution, because:

• It allows secure access at any time and from anywhere, to the Ethernet switches in order to guarantee continuous operations and minimal down time in the event of systems failure.
• All data that passed over the network is fully encrypted to ensure that unauthorized users cannot capture critical banking information.