In today’s world securing the network from unauthorized access and checking to see all the traffic which includes inbound and outbound to see from where problems are generated is very necessary and wise approach. But transferring to next generation packet filter is not an easy job.
Important factors:
Let’s discuss some important factors of transferring to next generation packet filters.
Can take time:
Now that you have made your plans to transfer and discovered the flow of traffic effectively for the specific application you want to transfer, everything is ready for them to be moved to a software defined network. But keep this in mind that you cannot do this overnight as it can take some time.
Step by step approach:
Tasks involved in the transferring of applications vary depending on the complexity and size of the network so a step by step approach of firewall migration is advised. Because transferring of all the applications in one go is not possible so you need to be prepared for a step by step transferring process.
Steps or stages:
These following stages are included in it
- Allocation of IP addresses and assigning the workloads of server on the new addresses
- To use the new IP addresses, reconfiguration of application software is needed
- New policies are written to permit the discovered traffic of application
- Validation and deployment of new policy
- Test of application’s functionality
- Then the moving of application to production is done
- Last step is the decommissioning of the legacy version for connectivity of application.
Network management:
Now that you have finished the transferring of applications to software-defined network, the IT section now has to be prepared for management of security policy. The IT section will be granted access to audit and adjust tracking. Other functions performed after getting access are compliance reporting and risk and new network policies need to be modified according to the changes to business applications.
Best way to handle:
The ideal way to handle this is through an automatic change request system. This holistic way supports the software-defined network packet filters and also the security controls, then it also supports the traditional packet filter estate.
Transferring to SDN:
To reduce the clutter and improve the efficiency of policy, transferring to SDN also provides with a great opportunity. Only actively used rules should be converted to the new network. To ensure success software defined networks transfer project requires a strong and repeatable process.
Conclusion:
Any organization can smoothly complete the firewall migration and transfer their applications by planning properly and best management and can reap benefits of performance scalability of software-defined networking.
