It's a new world, one in which physical security is less certain, and in which more and more of a company's lifeblood is held digitally rather than physically. Companies need to maintain their ability to withstand any sort of interruption, whether it is internal, external, or network-related. Companies should think about more than just data: Think about what you need to keep your business going, maintain customer satisfaction, and retain market share, even in the face of a spectacular interruption. Think about the ways in which you're interconnected with partners, suppliers, and customers, and work with those entities to ensure that their lapses don't become yours. More and more companies are creating highly available and fully redundant network systems, making preparation for any eventuality an everyday occurrence, not a reaction to unusual events.

To provide Best-of-Class security solutions, Cierra Business Solutions uses the same methodologies of Global corporations such as GM, Wal-Mart, Citibank, Department of Defense, and NASA among others. The master blueprint that Cierra Business Solutions builds upon is the Cisco’s SAFE Blueprint for Security.

Cierra Business Solutions uses the SAFE Blueprint as a flexible, dynamic blueprint for security and VPN networks, based on the Cisco’s Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID), that enables businesses to securely and successfully take advantage of e-business economies and compete in the Internet economy. Cisco has significantly enhanced the SAFE Blueprint, and extended network security and VPN options to small branch offices, teleworkers, and small-to-medium networks.

Cierra Business Solutions uses SAFE to emulate as closely as possible the functional requirements of today's enterprise networks. Implementation decisions varied depending on the network functionality required. However, the following design objectives, listed in order of priority, guided the decision-making process.

Security and attack mitigation based on policy
Security implementation throughout the infrastructure (not just on specialized security devices)
Secure management and reporting
Authentication and authorization of users and administrators to critical network resources
Intrusion detection for critical resources and subnets
Support for emerging networked applications

First and foremost, Cierra Business Solutions uses SAFE as a security architecture. We at Cierra Business Solutions feel that a sound architecture must prevent most attacks from successfully affecting valuable network resources. The attacks that succeed in penetrating the first line of defense, or originate from inside the network, must be accurately detected and quickly contained to minimize their effect on the rest of the network. However, in being secure, the network must continue to provide critical services that users expect. Proper network security and good network functionality can be provided at the same time. The SAFE architecture is not a revolutionary way of designing networks, but merely a blueprint for making networks secure.

SAFE is also resilient and scalable. Resilience in networks includes physical redundancy to protect against a device failure whether through misconfiguration, physical failure, or network attack. Although simpler designs are possible, particularly if a network's performance needs are not great, this document uses a complex design as an example because designing security in a complex environment is more involved than in simpler environments.