IS Deploy a New Software Defined Network Security Solution
Edinburgh Napier needed a new software defined network security solution to:
- Centrally Support the IT requirements of new University Research, Development and Teaching Initiatives
- Securely host shared learning environments for other educational institutions
- Improve protection of key Systems such as HR, Finance and Student Records within the Internal Datacentres.
Information Services' Data Centre & Operations team deployed VMware NSX to meet these demands.
About the VMWare NSX Project
Edinburgh Napier has two main datacentres which are highly virtualized and host nearly 600 virtual servers based on a VMware hypervisor platform. These servers run nearly all the University Corporate IT and online learning systems.
The IT demands of the University are changing rapidly, we needed to find a solution to securely meet the new needs of research within Edinburgh Napier and to be able to host environments for partner institutions. After evaluating different software defined security solutions, it was decided that VMware NSX was the best fit for the Edinburgh Napier environment.
Traditionally the main line of defence for the datacentre has been the perimeter hardware firewalls. NSX now allows the implementation of a distributed firewall across all the virtual servers and the ability to host secure tenant ‘bubbles’ of virtual servers isolated from the rest of the environment within the datacentres.
NSX has allowed us to host VLE environments for external partners in a secure and reproducible manner. We are now able to offer a managed and reliable computing platform to meet the teaching and research demand of the Schools and moving forward will be able to support the IT demands of new research projects. By hosting these environments centrally, they can be managed, backed-up and secured against cyber threats.
Moving forward NSX will be extended to all VM servers within the datacentres to secure all key applications and databases. Eventually NSX will be leveraged in combination with automation tools to streamline datacentre management and support a more agile Dev/Ops model of IT.
For more information on this project please contact Lynn McIntosh, Data Centre & Operations Manager.