Renewable vitality is a quickly rising phase of the vitality business. Applied sciences reminiscent of wind, photo voltaic, biomass, geothermal, and vitality storage are actually thought of mainstream. Nevertheless, all of those websites require safe connectivity to allow necessary distant monitoring and management.
Renewable vitality corporations should join an array of renewable vitality belongings unfold throughout broad 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 influence uptime.
SD-WAN is prepared for prime time with distributed vitality assets
Enterprises have broadly deployed Software program Outlined WAN (SD-WAN) over the previous 10 years to deal with related necessities: connecting distant websites utilizing whichever networking know-how is offered, 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 degree of safety all through the community.
Most renewable vitality corporations as we speak are used to constructing giant networks using applied sciences reminiscent of Web Protocol Safety (IPsec) and Dynamic Multipoint Digital Non-public Community (DMVPN) to encrypt vital Supervisory Management and Knowledge Acquisition (SCADA) communications. They’re utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for the underlying transport community, and public or non-public mobile for distant websites with no different WAN connectivity.
SD-WAN brings these applied sciences collectively and permits automation to vastly simplify deployments and supply unmatched cybersecurity advantages out-of-the-box:
- Safe zero contact deployment of discipline gateways, which means no discipline employees is required to configure a gateway.
- Easy provisioning of service VPNs to segregate site visitors (SCADA, CCTV, IP telephony, and many others.).
- Templated configurations making it simple to vary configuration and push it to gateways whereas making certain compliance of all discipline belongings to licensed 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 non-public MPLS for vital SCADA site visitors and mobile for backup and even internet-based connections for non-critical site visitors, the place acceptable.
- Lifecycle administration of gateways, reminiscent of firmware updates, alarm monitoring and statistics.
Simplifying connecting giant, distributed infrastructures
Deploying an SD-WAN overlay additionally permits the renewable vitality 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 offers a safer overlay community for vital monitoring and management site visitors.
Wouldn’t or not it’s helpful to have a single answer with a alternative of business ruggedized gateways for various web site varieties? We expect so, and Cisco offers a number of industrial routers to swimsuit all deployment websites and might 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 places 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 offers a broad set of cybersecurity options, simplifying coverage creation and deployment to the sting gateways. Superior safety capabilities reminiscent of:
- 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 recognized threats and malicious actions reminiscent of vulnerability exploits.
- Superior malware safety methods, together with signature-based and behavior-based evaluation, to establish and block recognized and unknown malware threats.
- URL filtering to dam or permit customers to entry URLs primarily based on greater than 80 internet classes protecting hundreds of thousands of domains and billions of webpages.
- Safe entry to cloud and web assets with Cisco Umbrella® which mixes safe internet gateway, DNS safety, cloud-delivered firewall, cloud entry safety dealer performance, and menace intelligence to guard towards web threats.
Managing cyber dangers to drive regulatory compliance
Additional to securing the perimeter and connectivity to the renewable vitality web site, Cisco offers additional safety instruments that may be leveraged ‘excessive’ to extend the safety posture of the location:
- Cisco Cyber Imaginative and prescient provides asset house owners full visibility into gadgets linked to their industrial networks, communication patterns, vulnerabilities, and utility flows to assist assess the OT safety posture. Renewable vitality corporations now have exact info to grasp their cyber dangers, implement safety finest practices, and drive compliance with cybersecurity rules reminiscent of NERC CIP or NIS2.
- Cisco Safe Tools Entry (SEA) helps safe distant entry to grid belongings providing you with full management over which technician or contractor can remotely entry belongings for configuration, upkeep, or troubleshooting. It brings all the advantages of a zero-trust community entry (ZTNA) structure to distributed renewable vitality websites, so customers have entry solely to the gadgets you select, utilizing solely the protocols you specify, and solely on the day and time you permit.
Safe your distributed vitality infrastructure with Cisco
In abstract, the Cisco SD-WAN answer coupled with Cisco Catalyst Industrial Routers and OT safety merchandise may be very related to renewable vitality networks and might help simplify deployment at scale whereas providing superior cybersecurity capabilities. Be taught 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 pleased that can assist you construct the safe SD-WAN infrastructure you’ve been ready for.
Share:
