Next Generation Networking: Challenges and Solutions for Retail Organizations

Introduction

RELEASE 1

MAY 2012

Retail organizations today depend more than ever on networks to connect large numbers of
geographically dispersed locations with total reliability. Information must be shared instantly among
outlets, distribution centers, headquarters, suppliers, warehouses, transport contractors, manufacturers,
and other ecosystem partners.
At the same time, it is critical for these organizations to maintain ironclad security for confidential
customer data such as credit card numbers, as well as proprietary business information and strategic
plans. And in order to do business, they must be able to demonstrate compliance with a number of
regulatory regimes, particularly including PCI DSS rules governing secure credit card transactions.
Rapid growth in the use of Web 2.0 applications such as social media sites and streaming video services,
along with increasing numbers of personal devices accessing the network, are making it dramatically
more costly and difficult to achieve these goals.
Fortunately, a new, more comprehensive approach to network management, known as Next-Generation
Networking, is enabling advanced solutions to address the challenges of regulatory compliance, business
continuity, network security, mobility, and more all designed to simplify IT management, minimize
costs, and conserve limited resources. As the industry leader in Next-Generation Networking, Barracuda
Networks has developed solutions tailored for the needs of retail organizations in the 21st century.
Traditional views of IT regard servers, storage, and networks as three distinct categories of resource,
each with its own functions and vulnerabilities, and each requiring its own solutions for optimization,
security, and management.
This view, however, fails to capture the reality of todays more dynamic IT environment. Next-Generation
Networking takes a more holistic view of IT resources, cutting across outdated categories to apply total
security, ensure application delivery, and protect data across the entire range of IT resources.

PCI DSS Compliance

Regulatory compliance for retail organizations requires ironclad security measures to protect stored
customer data and credit-card information; highly secure online transaction mechanisms to protect
data in transit; secure backup to ensure fast and easy disaster recovery; and effective message archiving
to satisfy audit and discovery requirements and manage liability.
Barracuda Networks Next-Generation Networking solutions include powerful capabilities to support
compliance efforts by retail organizations:

Centralized password and access control to limit access to sensitive data

Secure message archiving with smartphone and Exchange integration

Fine-grained policies to precisely control individual access to sensitive data

Social media message archiving to enable comprehensive e-discovery when required

State-of-the-art inline intrusion detection and prevention

Customizable web-based SSL VPN with sophisticated Network Access Control

Tracking and monitoring of all access to network resources and cardholder data by individual user

Centralized, single-point management portal with comprehensive, customizable monitoring and

reporting to help demonstrate compliance

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Next Generation Networking: Challenges and Solutions for Retail Organizations

Bandwidth Optimization
The use of streaming media, peer-to-peer file sharing sites, and social media applications and games,
along with the large numbers of personal mobile devices connecting to the network, has dramatically
increased the amount of bandwidth consumed by employees, to the point where it seriously affects
overall network performance. And if employees are using the corporate network to download pirated
content or software, the problem is compounded by issues of legal liability.
Retail organizations that provide complimentary Wi-Fi access for guests in their outlets face the same
challenges on an even larger scale.
Barracuda Networks Next-Generation Networking solutions address these challenges with advanced
capabilities that leverage LDAP/Active Directory integration and Layer-7 application visibility to
enable fine-grained policies that pinpoint individual users, domains, and applications. For example, IT
administrators can use these capabilities to:

Block access to illegal or unwanted sites and applications

Throttle bandwidth for specific applications, such as YouTube and Pandora

Identify individual users and applications consuming excessive bandwidth

Selectively allow access to specific social applications, e.g. only Marketing personnel can access
Facebook (but not Facebook games or chat)

Limit total Wi-Fi or guest bandwidth allocation

Cost Management and Business Continuity

In the age of just-in-time inventory, moment-by-moment pricing adjustments, and highly targeted
customer-aware promotional offers, network failures and slowdowns can be disastrously costly. At the
same time, failures are too infrequent to justify the cost of redundant MPLS links.
Next-Generation Networking solutions from Barracuda Networks provide advanced capabilities to
maximize network uptime while minimizing costs. These capabilities make it possible to assign rules
that allocate fixed percentages of available bandwidth to specific services and applications. This ensures
that critical business applications and VOIP will not be under-provisioned due to heavy web traffic.
In addition, multiple links (MPLS, T1, DSL, 3G) can be transparently integrated. Then, if a high-bandwidth
link fails, traffic is instantly rerouted to the remaining links and a new, predefined set of rules for
traffic prioritization is applied automatically to allocate bandwidth appropriately.
Powerful backup and message archiving capabilities improve business continuity by enabling fast,
easy disaster recovery and e-discovery compliance. And in case of email server failure, Barracudas
filtering service includes email queuing for up to four days to minimize business disruption.
By combining these capabilities, retail organizations can realize the greatest value from their
connectivity investment while maximizing network availability and controlling costs.

Security
Cybercriminals have got data theft down to a science or rather, a business. Using an ever-growing
arsenal of readily-available scripts and techniques, they are always on the lookout for valuable data
that is not carefully defended. Retailers who are victimized by these thieves must work hard to regain
lost trust. Its far better never to be victimized in the first place.
Traditional email filtering remains indispensable, but in todays dynamic threat environment it is not sufficient.
New threat vectors include mobile devices, evasive Web 2.0 applications, and social media platforms.
Barracuda Networks solutions include comprehensive security capabilities to extend protection across
highly distributed networks.

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Next Generation Networking: Challenges and Solutions for Retail Organizations

Barracuda Networks maintains a vast signature library for recognizing and turning back malware
of all kinds. With more than 150,000 detection points deployed around the globe, Barracuda Labs the
companys threat research division is instantly alerted to any new attack, and is able to develop and
distribute updated signatures extremely rapidly.

Content filtering on-site or in the cloud ensures that all web traffic is inspected to block malware
and to reject traffic from known spyware sites.

Remote users connect securely thanks to intelligent VPN capabilities with built-in military grade
encryption and multi-link failover.

Mobile devices are secured with hardened browsers and software agents that redirect all web
requests through the networks content filter so that they are protected even when they connect to
the Internet through public, unsecured Wi-Fi or other access points.

Comprehensive digital backup with automatic deduplication and complete revision history secures
the network against catastrophic data loss, enabling fast, complete restoration to any pre-disaster state.

Deployment Options and Resource Optimization

Even the most capable and feature-rich networking solutions are of little benefit to retail organizations
if managing and maintaining them is excessively complex and resource-intensive. Furthermore,
existing network architectures and configurations vary widely among different organizations.
Solutions that may only be deployed in a particular, pre-determined format will only appeal to a small
subset of potential beneficiaries.
Barracuda Networks designs all its solutions with an emphasis on integration, simplicity of operation, and ease
of use, while offering a full range of deployment options to fit with any organizations existing infrastructure.

Barracuda Control Center is a single-point management portal that uses an intuitive interface to offer
administrators complete, integrated, network-wide control of nearly all Barracuda Networks products
and services. In addition, it provides unparalleled visibility into network activity, including bandwidth
and protocol/port use broken down by individual users and devices, allowing personnel to monitor
in real time and respond instantly to bandwidth spikes or other suspicious or undesirable activity. And
it generates alerts and reports based on a wide variety of user-defined parameters. This centralized
management portal is a significant benefit for retail organizations that wish to control costs by keeping
their IT personnel needs to a minimum.

A variety of deployment options ensures that Barracuda Networks solutions can be seamlessly
deployed into any pre-existing network infrastructure. Solutions can be delivered as rack-mounted
appliances, virtual appliances, cloud-based services, or hybrid deployments. The specific choice for a
particular organization will depend upon the number of geographically distinct locations, the numbers
of on-site and remote users, the bandwidth and storage capacities of existing resources, the presence
of virtualization environments, and simple preference.

Simple, all-inclusive pricing structures provide predictable costs, with most solutions having no
per-user license or storage fees, or fees for enabling new or existing features and functions. As business
grows, simply scale up to the maximum capacity of your installed solution, employing the full featureset as desired, with no additional costs.

Support Services
Barracuda Networks Customer Support and Technical Support organizations are recognized for
delivering an extraordinary level of personalized, highly responsive service. With no annoying phone
trees to navigate, customers are immediately connected with a knowledgeable representative who
can quickly escalate an issue for swift resolution, ensuring that business disruptions are minimized.
In addition to exceptional support organizations, Barracuda Networks Next-Generation Networking
solutions may be enhanced with a variety of subscription services to help keep products up to date and
to minimize business disruptions in case of equipment failure or other issues.

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Next Generation Networking: Challenges and Solutions for Retail Organizations

Energize Updates
This affordable subscription service ensures that Barracuda Networks products and services
remain constantly up to date. As new instances of malware and malicious web domains appear,
Barracuda Labs collects reports and data sent automatically from numerous collection points
and more than 150,000 client sites around the world, in order to rapidly create signatures and
defenses. These are forwarded to Barracuda Central, which instantly distributes them to ensure
your network is always protected.

Instant Replacement
A separate program, Instant Replacement provides a single convenient subscription that protects
against hardware failure and provides an affordable way to migrate to the most current hardware
platform on an ongoing basis.
If a Barracuda Networks appliance fails, Instant Replacement subscribers will be sent a replacement
via overnight delivery within twenty-four hours. Its a simple and affordable way to minimize any
network disruptions or interruptions of security coverage that may result from equipment failure.
The Barracuda Instant Replacement subscription also provides ongoing migration to the latest
hardware platforms. Subscribers are automatically eligible to receive a new, replacement hardware
unit every four years at absolutely no additional cost.

Premium Support Services

For high-capacity appliances supporting mission-critical functions, a Premium Support Services
subscription ensures that support tickets will be routed with highest priority, with a Service Level
Agreement guaranteeing maximum response times. Premium Support Services ensure the fastest
possible resolution to issues that create costly business disruptions.

Conclusions
Todays retail organizations cannot compete effectively without a full range of highly available network
functions. But keeping networks and applications up and running in the age of mobility, Web 2.0,
streaming media, and increased dispersion is a growing challenge.
Barracuda Networks delivers Next-Generation Networking solutions built from a comprehensive,
integrated suite of products and services that secure the extended network, enhance application
delivery and network reliability, optimize resource efficiency, and simplify network management.
These capabilities, delivered in hardware, virtual, and cloud-based deployments, combine to give
retail organizations the ability to focus on their primary business objectives, while devoting minimal
resources and personnel to their IT infrastructure.

About Barracuda Networks Inc.

Barracuda Networks Inc. combines premises-based gateways and software, virtual appliances, cloud
services, and sophisticated remote support to deliver comprehensive content security, data protection
and application delivery solutions. The companys expansive product portfolio includes offerings for
protection against email, web and IM threats as well as products that improve application delivery
and network access, message archiving, backup and data protection.
Coca-Cola, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, LOreal, and Europcar are among the more than 150,000
organizations protecting their IT infrastructures with Barracuda Networks range of affordable,
easy-to-deploy and manage solutions. Barracuda Networks is privately held with its International
headquarters in Campbell, Calif. For more information, please visit www.barracudanetworks.com

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Barracuda Networks
3175 S. Winchester Boulevard
Campbell, CA 95008
United States
+1.888.268.4772
www.barracuda.com
[email protected]

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