In today’s increasingly complex business environments, the network is facing new challenges and must offer more services than ever before. At the heart of all business communications is the LAN, or Local Area Network. The LAN is network infrastructure made up of switches and routers which transport business critical information and communications across the company. The LAN is the single most crucial component of any company’s business communications, yet it is the most overlooked component because of the focus on applications which “run on top” of the LAN. Large enterprises, small businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies alike must optimize their LAN’s for optimal performance in order to derive the greatest advantage from today’s bandwidth hungry applications. This means organizations must achieve the greatest value from their existing infrastructures while positioning themselves to take full advantage of such technological innovations as IP telephony and wireless LANs.

Instead of merely purchasing point switching products for the network, it is critical that IT organizations utilize a systems approach to design/develop their networks in an effort to build integrated, secure, resilient networks that incorporate intelligence. Through this approach, not only will organizations be well positioned to quickly and easily deploy new applications and communications systems that merge wireless, voice, video, and storage capabilities, but also be better positioned to secure the network and utilize centralized management tools to more effectively monitor and maintain network operations. Having this level of intelligence integrated into the network infrastructure is crucial to achieve adequate service levels for today’s bandwidth-hungry applications, as well as maintaining the secure transmission and storage your business communications and data.

How will your LAN stand up against the weekly release of viruses, worms and attack tools which threaten your business operations? The LAN is where networked devices attach to the network; therefore, it is the first point of entry of an attack into the network. Do you know, or have a way to leverage network intelligence to know for certain your LAN is secure? Is your LAN ready for the latest business bandwidth-hungry applications? Traditional TDM or dedicated voice lines are thing of the past… the industry is adopting VoIP or IP Telephony for voice communications at an astonishing rate. Is your network ready to support these technologies? What about wireless communications? Is your LAN ready to support secure wireless communications?