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In technology-reliant business environments, large enterprises face immense pressure to maintain seamless network operations while adhering with rigorous business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) standards. These requirements are often dictated by regulatory compliance mandates, corporate security policies, and service level agreements (SLAs). Failure to meet these standards can result in costly disruptions, compliance violations, and damaged reputations.
However, when you have hundreds of networks and thousands of devices across geographically dispersed locations, the challenge of meeting those requirements can be pretty daunting. You typically have dozens of IT administrators and engineers managing your networks and devices.
So, at any given time, it’s possible for a configuration change to be taking place somewhere in your organization. You’re therefore subjected to an increased risk of human error that may in turn cause network configurations to deviate from those standards and potentially lead to downtime.
If you’re using Cisco Meraki to manage your networks and network devices, we have the perfect solution for you. Boundless Safeguard is a Meraki-API powered solution that you can incorporate into your overarching business continuity and disaster recovery strategy.
Before we elaborate more on Boundless Safeguard, let’s first review the challenges you may face in connection with regulatory compliance mandates, corporate security policies, and SLAs.
The ability to maintain optimal uptime and recover quickly from an operational disruption are now essential to enterprise networks. They’re not just qualities enterprises aspire to. Rather, they’re now considered crucial business requirements.
For instance, if your business is governed by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), PCI DSS 4.0 Requirement 6.5.1 compels you to implement a set of procedures for when changes are made to system components. As further stipulated in the requirement, those procedures must enable you to address potential failures and to return to a secure state. In the context of PCI DSS, system components include network devices.
Similarly, if your business is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Article 32 requires you to possess the ability “to restore the availability and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident”. This means that if the personal data in question is accessed through your network, then you have to make sure you possess that ability.
In addition to regulations like PCI DSS and GDPR, you may also have to meet SLAs, particularly SLA provisions that call for high levels of uptime. If your SLA calls for 99.9% uptime, you’re only allowed up to 22.5 hours of downtime per year. Or if it calls for 99.99% uptime, then you must not exceed 4.5 hours of downtime per year.
When you’re dealing with hundreds of networks and thousands of devices, returning to a secure state in a timely manner or limiting downtime to a maximum of 22.5 hours per year, let alone 4.5 hours per year, is no easy task. To achieve these levels of uptime in your Meraki network, you have to employ a highly capable backup and recovery solution.
Boundless Safeguard is an advanced Meraki network backup and recovery solution that primarily:
It’s hard to articulate the value of this solution with just a few bullet points. Let’s dive deeper and walk you through some of its key features, and then highlight the benefits in the succeeding section.
Safeguard monitors the Meraki change log at intervals of 1 to 5 minutes. Every time configurations change, the changes are automatically captured in a time-stamped snapshot. The solution backs up configurations down to the device level regardless how large your organization is or how many networks and devices you have in it.
For example, in the screenshot shown below, Safeguard has backed up 309 networks, 5 templates, and 1786 devices belonging to the Waystar Royco organization.
When you access an Entity (a network, template, or organization settings), you can see all saved backups associated with that entity. Each backup is accompanied by a change log that details what was modified, the specific timestamp, and who committed the change. This way, if someone makes an ad hoc configuration change—such as temporarily opening a firewall port or adjusting a VLAN setting—you have a way of knowing.
When reviewing a specific backup, you can compare configurations before and after the change. This comparison provides valuable context, helping you assess whether the change could have security implications. If it does, you can investigate further to determine if it was part of a legitimate operation or potentially malicious activity.
Based on your findings, you can take the appropriate action. For example, if the activity is legitimate, you can ensure that settings are restored once the temporary change is no longer needed. If the activity appears malicious, you can alert your incident response or cybersecurity team and promptly revert to a known secure configuration.
In addition to the change log, you can also review all network and device configuration settings at a specific timestamp by clicking the Backup tab.
There’s also the Compare tab, where you can compare the configurations of different timestamps. You’ll find this useful in several operations. For instance, you can use it to:
Safeguard combines comprehensive Meraki network backup functionality with fast and flexible recovery. Once you’ve identified a good backup you wish to revert to, you can then perform a point-in-time configuration restore. Select a snapshot event, then choose either a partial or full restore.
A full restore restores all settings, whereas a partial restore lets you to select only those specific settings that you wish to roll back. This feature can come in handy if you wish to revert to previous configurations while keeping configuration changes that you already find appropriate.
To reduce clutter, some IT admins make it a habit to delete old network and template configurations. But what if an admin deletes a configuration by accident? That’s not a problem. Safeguard allows you to recover a deleted configuration in just a few clicks.
Just bear in mind that if you delete a network configuration, all devices associated with the network in question will also be removed. Hence, you would have to re-map those devices as part of your recovery process.
Safeguard provides enterprises the ability to achieve rapid and reliable network recovery in the event of a misconfiguration-related outage. This capability is essential in meeting stringent regulatory, corporate policy, and SLA uptime or disaster recovery requirements.
Would you like a firsthand experience with a fast, easy, and reliable Cisco Meraki disaster recovery solution? Book a quick Boundless Safeguard demo now.
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