Renewable power is a quickly rising section of the power business. Applied sciences akin to wind, photo voltaic, biomass, geothermal, and power storage at the moment are thought of mainstream. Nonetheless, all of those websites require safe connectivity to allow necessary distant monitoring and management.
Renewable power corporations should join an array of renewable power property unfold throughout vast 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 power sources
Enterprises have extensively deployed Software program Outlined WAN (SD-WAN) over the previous 10 years to deal with comparable necessities: connecting distant websites utilizing whichever networking know-how is accessible, 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 corporations right now are used to constructing giant networks using applied sciences akin to Web Protocol Safety (IPsec) and Dynamic Multipoint Digital Personal Community (DMVPN) to encrypt essential Supervisory Management and Information 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 significantly simplify deployments and provide unmatched cybersecurity advantages out-of-the-box:
- Safe zero contact deployment of subject gateways, which means no subject workers is required to configure a gateway.
- Easy provisioning of service VPNs to segregate 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 subject property to approved templates.
- Software of unified safety insurance policies throughout a various vary of distant websites and gear.
- Managing a number of backhaul connectivity choices on the gateway together with personal MPLS for essential SCADA visitors and mobile for backup and even internet-based connections for non-critical visitors, the place applicable.
- Lifecycle administration of gateways, akin to firmware updates, alarm monitoring and statistics.
Simplifying connecting giant, distributed infrastructures
Deploying an SD-WAN overlay additionally permits the renewable power firm to regulate the end-to-end IP addressing schemes and take away the necessity to engineer advanced routing plans based mostly 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 essential monitoring and management visitors.
Wouldn’t or not it’s helpful to have a single resolution with a alternative of commercial ruggedized gateways for various website varieties? We expect so, and Cisco gives a number of industrial routers to swimsuit all deployment websites and could be managed as a part of the Cisco SD-WAN resolution.
Cisco industrial routers such because the Catalyst IR8340 Rugged Collection Routers for bigger websites, Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Collection Routers and Catalyst IR1800 Rugged Collection 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 website.
Unifying networking and cybersecurity
Cisco’s SD-WAN resolution additionally gives a broad set of cybersecurity options, simplifying coverage creation and deployment to the sting gateways. Superior safety capabilities akin to:
- Firewall with utility consciousness (NGFW) to filter visitors in actual time and supply granular management able to detecting hundreds of functions.
- Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS) with Talos® signatures to determine and block recognized threats and malicious actions akin to vulnerability exploits.
- Superior malware safety strategies, together with signature-based and behavior-based evaluation, to determine and block recognized and unknown malware threats.
- URL filtering to dam or enable customers to entry URLs based mostly on greater than 80 internet classes protecting thousands and thousands of domains and billions of webpages.
- Safe entry to cloud and web sources with Cisco Umbrella® which mixes safe internet gateway, DNS safety, cloud-delivered firewall, cloud entry safety dealer performance, and menace intelligence to guard in opposition to web threats.
Managing cyber dangers to drive regulatory compliance
Additional to securing the perimeter and connectivity to the renewable power website, Cisco gives additional safety instruments that may be leveraged ‘excessive’ to extend the safety posture of the positioning:
- Cisco Cyber Imaginative and prescient offers asset homeowners full visibility into units linked to their industrial networks, communication patterns, vulnerabilities, and utility flows to assist assess the OT safety posture. Renewable power corporations now have exact data to grasp their cyber dangers, implement safety finest practices, and drive compliance with cybersecurity laws akin to NERC CIP or NIS2.
- Cisco Safe Tools Entry (SEA) helps safe distant entry to grid property supplying 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 enable.
Safe your distributed power infrastructure with Cisco
In abstract, the Cisco SD-WAN resolution coupled with Cisco Catalyst Industrial Routers and OT safety merchandise may be very related to renewable power networks and may also help simplify deployment at scale whereas providing superior cybersecurity capabilities. Be taught extra about it within the resolution overview we not too long ago revealed. I’ve additionally mentioned it in additional particulars in a latest 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.
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