Overview
Network
security administrators constantly need to provide routine maintenance
on security devices dispersed across their company network. Performing
network maintenance one device at a time is labor intensive, creates
inconsistencies in policies and increases the likelihood of errors
introduced into the system.
The Provisioning
Management Software Blade provides centralized administration and
provisioning of Check Point security devices via a single management
console. Using profiles, a network administrator can easily deploy
security policy or configuration settings to multiple, geographically
distributed devices. The Provisioning Blade also provides centralized
backup management and a repository of device configurations so
administrators can easily apply existing configurations to new devices.
By automating device configuration, the Provisioning Blade reduces
administrative overhead, reduces errors and ensures security
consistency across the network.
Key Benefits
- Reduced administrative overhead
- Rapid deployment and replacement of devices
- Automated device management reduces errors and improves security
- Centralized control over appliance deployment, maintenance and recovery
- Scalable to manage thousands of devices across multiple, disparate networks
Features
Centralized Device Configuration
The Provisioning Software Blade provides an intuitive and easy
interface to centrally manage device configurations such as operating
system and network settings. Networking configurations include DNS,
hosts, domain, routing and interface settings.
The
Provisioning Blade interface enables easy navigation between the system
overview, profile configuration and device configuration panes. The
System Overview pane provides a quick snapshot of device status,
critical notifications and action status. The Profile pane is the
interface for managing provisioning profiles, and the Device pane
allows for the easy management of gateways and other device objects.
System Overview
Device View
Profile View
Profile-Based Management
The Check Point Provisioning Management Blade is based on profiles
which enable an administrator to manage large scale deployments that
benefit from common security policies and device settings. Each profile
defines the gateway properties per profile object - which represents
multiple, unlimited gateways with similar properties and policies –
rather than per physical gateway. This means that time invested in each
device can be minimized and batch operations performed, thereby
reducing administrative overhead.
The Provisioning Blade uses different types of profiles to manage and provision security gateways.
Security
Profiles: A security profile defines a Check Point security policy and
other security-based settings for a set of gateways. These gateways can
be corporate or branch office gateways. Each security profile can hold
the configuration of any number of actual gateways, enabling large
scale policy management of branch sites and gateways that have similar
properties. Examples of such sites can include worldwide retail chain
stores, bank ATM machines or car manufacturer dealerships.
Provisioning
Profiles: In order to facilitate the management of a large number of
similarly configured devices, common settings can be configured on an
object called the provisioning profile. Each provisioned device is
associated with a provisioning profile, and thus inherits all of the
profile's settings. A provisioning profile can define specific settings
for networking, device management, and the operating system. Common
device settings include DNS, time zones, domain names and routing data.
Provisioning profiles can be applied to UTM-1, Power-1, SecurePlatform
or UTM-1 Edge appliances. There are specific provisioning profiles for
the different appliance products; so for example, UTM-1 Edge appliances
will have provisioning profiles unique and different from Power-1
appliances.
All devices managed fetch their assigned
profiles from the centralized management server. If the fetched profile
differs from the previous profile, the device is updated with the
changes. Thus, one profile is able to update potentially hundreds and
thousands of devices, each acquiring the new common properties, while
maintaining its own local settings.
Centralized Provisioning Wizard
A provisioning wizard enables you to configure large scale deployments
of devices. The wizard enables an administrator to quickly choose the
devices to be configured, fetch current configuration settings and
associate devices with a provisioning profile. Each device can be
associated to a profile separately, or multiple devices to the same
profile at once.
Scheduled Actions
Sometimes, administrators need to perform operations that are not part
of a device’s configuration. The Provisioning Blade supports these one
time operations or actions on a device or group of gateways which can
include running scripts, installing software packages, creating backup
images, rebooting, pushing policy, pushing objects, etc. The progress
and status of the action can be easily viewed on the action pane.
Support
Threats
to networks are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. To
maintain continuity and productivity, defenses must advance as quickly
to deliver the technology and features that protect the business. Check
Point Services protect against emerging threats with critical hot
software fixes, service packs, and major software upgrades.
Benefits
- Ensure continuous security with access to critical hot fixes and service packs
- Maximize ROI and investment with access to major upgrades and enhancements
- Increase security with the latest applications, features, and technologies
