Intelligent Control for Energy/Utility Companies

Utilities and other energy companies face a challenging LAN environment. On one hand, these organizations have geographically diverse operations with a huge number of remote sites, mobile field personnel, and a large contractor workforce. On the other, utilities and energy companies face pressure from government regulations that mandate high levels of security as part of the national defense.

Utility and energy companies must evaluate solutions that will provide them with complete control of users and applications. The chosen product should be simple to use, manage, and deploy. In addition to a product that is scalable and cost-effective, utility and energy companies should focus on a holistic solution for intelligent control.

Key features of Intelligent Control of users and applications

• complete Network Admission Control (NAC) - user authentication, role derivation, and host posture assessment to ensure only valid users and devices enter the LAN
• improved application performance - Layer 7 identification, prioritization, and treatment of applications to protect assets and put business needs first
• complete user control - identity- and role-based policies to control access to applications and other resources
• faster troubleshooting - username, device, application, and resource tied together to accelerate incident response
• simplified compliance and audit trail - full documentation of all policies, as well as all LAN activities, tied to username and resource to speed audits

Key projects ConSentry can help address

• Provide differentiated access to network resources based on user status – guest, contractor, employee
• Block attacks such as DoS or worm outbreaks to maintain access to critical applications such as outage management, work management, and CRM
• Protect against unauthorized network access from wireless LANs
• Deploy Network Admission Control (NAC) without a switch upgrade
• Ensure only compliant devices get on the LAN, with host posture check
• Limit or block “time waster” applications such as IM to improve productivity