Renewable power is a quickly rising section of the power trade. Applied sciences similar to wind, photo voltaic, biomass, geothermal, and power storage at the moment are thought-about mainstream. Nevertheless, all of those websites require safe connectivity to allow essential distant monitoring and management.
Renewable power firms should join an array of renewable power property unfold throughout large geographic areas. Many renewable asset operators additionally use private and non-private cloud-based functions, together with SCADA. They want a community structure that’s easy to deploy at scale throughout quite a few distributed websites and but extremely safe to make sure cyber threats don’t affect uptime.
SD-WAN is prepared for prime time with distributed power sources
Enterprises have extensively deployed Software program Outlined WAN (SD-WAN) over the previous 10 years to handle related necessities: connecting distant websites utilizing whichever networking expertise is out there, simplifying administration of the infrastructure, providing seamless entry to functions wherever they’re hosted, delivering assurance for functions particularly for distant customers, and providing a really excessive stage of safety all through the community.
Most renewable power firms as we speak are used to constructing massive networks using applied sciences similar to Web Protocol Safety (IPsec) and Dynamic Multipoint Digital Personal Community (DMVPN) to encrypt important Supervisory Management and Knowledge Acquisition (SCADA) communications. They’re utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for the underlying transport community, and public or personal mobile for distant websites with no different WAN connectivity.
SD-WAN brings these applied sciences collectively and allows automation to tremendously simplify deployments and supply unmatched cybersecurity advantages out-of-the-box:
- Safe zero contact deployment of area gateways, that means no area workers is required to configure a gateway.
- Easy provisioning of service VPNs to segregate site visitors (SCADA, CCTV, IP telephony, and so on.).
- Templated configurations making it straightforward to vary configuration and push it to gateways whereas guaranteeing compliance of all area property to approved templates.
- Software of unified safety insurance policies throughout a various vary of distant websites and tools.
- Managing a number of backhaul connectivity choices on the gateway together with personal MPLS for important SCADA site visitors and mobile for backup and even internet-based connections for non-critical site visitors, the place acceptable.
- Lifecycle administration of gateways, similar to firmware updates, alarm monitoring and statistics.
Simplifying connecting massive, distributed infrastructures
Deploying an SD-WAN overlay additionally permits the renewable power firm to manage the end-to-end IP addressing schemes and take away the necessity to engineer complicated routing plans primarily based on the underlying transport community, very often supplied by a third-party service supplier. This divorces the underlying transport community from the overlay community. Therefore, it simplifies operational duties and gives a safer overlay community for important monitoring and management site visitors.
Wouldn’t or not it’s useful to have a single answer with a alternative of business ruggedized gateways for various web site varieties? We predict so, and Cisco gives a number of industrial routers to go well with all deployment websites and could be managed as a part of the Cisco SD-WAN answer.
Cisco industrial routers such because the Catalyst IR8340 Rugged Sequence Routers for bigger websites, Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Sequence Routers and Catalyst IR1800 Rugged Sequence Routers for smaller websites all function as SD-WAN edge gateways alongside with the well-known Cisco enterprise routers (digital and bodily), which can be utilized for management facilities, cloud areas and different operational websites to supply a single overlay community connecting to any web site.
Unifying networking and cybersecurity
Cisco’s SD-WAN answer additionally gives a broad set of cybersecurity options, simplifying coverage creation and deployment to the sting gateways. Superior safety capabilities similar to:
- Firewall with utility consciousness (NGFW) to filter site visitors in actual time and supply granular management able to detecting 1000’s of functions.
- Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS) with Talos® signatures to establish and block identified threats and malicious actions similar to vulnerability exploits.
- Superior malware safety methods, together with signature-based and behavior-based evaluation, to establish and block identified and unknown malware threats.
- URL filtering to dam or permit customers to entry URLs primarily based on greater than 80 net classes overlaying tens of millions of domains and billions of webpages.
- Safe entry to cloud and web sources with Cisco Umbrella® which mixes safe net gateway, DNS safety, cloud-delivered firewall, cloud entry safety dealer performance, and risk intelligence to guard towards web threats.
Managing cyber dangers to drive regulatory compliance
Additional to securing the perimeter and connectivity to the renewable power web site, Cisco gives additional safety instruments that may be leveraged ‘excessive’ to extend the safety posture of the location:
- Cisco Cyber Imaginative and prescient offers asset homeowners full visibility into units related to their industrial networks, communication patterns, vulnerabilities, and utility flows to assist assess the OT safety posture. Renewable power firms now have exact data to know their cyber dangers, implement safety greatest practices, and drive compliance with cybersecurity laws similar to NERC CIP or NIS2.
- Cisco Safe Tools Entry (SEA) helps safe distant entry to grid property providing you with full management over which technician or contractor can remotely entry property for configuration, upkeep, or troubleshooting. It brings all the advantages of a zero-trust community entry (ZTNA) structure to distributed renewable power websites, so customers have entry solely to the units you select, utilizing solely the protocols you specify, and solely on the day and time you permit.
Safe your distributed power infrastructure with Cisco
In abstract, the Cisco SD-WAN answer coupled with Cisco Catalyst Industrial Routers and OT safety merchandise could be very related to renewable power networks and may also help simplify deployment at scale whereas providing superior cybersecurity capabilities. Study extra about it within the answer overview we lately printed. I’ve additionally mentioned it in additional particulars in a current webinar, which now you can watch on-demand. We’ll be completely happy that can assist you construct the safe SD-WAN infrastructure you’ve been ready for.
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