"We needed to sell this to the production side," Drewek explains. "If we hadn't gotten their approval, the CIO might have put the kibosh on it, because we didn't have the budget for it." The SSL VPN would have been put on hold until next year, when it would be more of a sure thing, he says.
But Drewek and his team did convince production that SSL was the way to go, and the VPN project sailed through the approval process. Drewek won't disclose how much was budgeted to buy the Juniper Networks NetScreen Secure Access 3020 VPN appliances, but he admits the business continuity and security programs were the vehicle for getting the green light.
"These initiatives require that we provide access to our automated systems," Drewek says.
As part of its disaster-recovery and business- continuity strategy, Quad also runs a secondary data center 15 miles from its headquarters in Sussex, Wis. The additional data center operates as a load-sharing backup site, but can also take over in the event of a disaster or outage at headquarters. A pair of NetScreen SA 3020s runs at that site as well.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
