RE: Best Practices for Enterprise networks

2004-09-04 Thread Måns Nilsson


--On söndag 29 augusti 2004 17.42 -0700 Michel Py
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
 Tracy Smith wrote:
 Specifically, to NAT or not to NAT?
 
 This is not much of an issue anymore. If you receive IP addresses from
 your ISP, not natting would be foolish.

No. Renumbering is easy and fun, not to mention a great source of revenue
for IT consultants. 

 Even if you do own your own
 public IP space, the NAT issues are fundamentally no different than the
 firewall ones 

Yes, they are. NAT and firewalling are orthogonal. They just are bundled in
a lot of bad products. 

 and since not having a firewall is not an option, 

Yes, it is. Firewalls in the corporate environments have lead to the
pathetic state of notpatchedness that allows simple email virii to take
down  entire enterprises simply because inside the firewall everyone are
nice. Such solutions make much more damage than good. 

 most
 enterprises will indeed NAT some of their subnets in their firewalls,
 whether or not they have or could easily obtain public space.

Finally, you are correct, although not because you describe some clever
plan for enterprise network management, but instead you describe the
pathetic state of notworking that permeates (with the aid of overpaid
undercompetent firewall conslutants (I used to be one.)) through the
corporate world. 

 Paul Ferguson wrote:
 Asymmetric paths are a fact of life in the Internet.
 
 Not for enterprise operators except the largest ones. 

Except when people, being people, mess up. 

-- 
Måns Nilsson Systems Specialist
+46 70 681 7204 KTHNOC
MN1334-RIPE


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Re: Best Practices for Enterprise networks

2004-08-29 Thread Iljitsch van Beijnum
On 30-aug-04, at 0:50, Tracy Smith wrote:
Hello.  I am tyring to gauge what the Best Practices are for 
Enterprise network connections to the Internet.  Specifically, to NAT 
or not to NAT?  At what point should NAT-ting be performed ... 
exclusively at the Egress point or at decentralized points?  What 
about firewalling - centralized/decentralized?
Fortunately, I've never been in the position to make such decisions, 
but I can tell you one thing: if you have multiple connections to the 
internet, you had better make sure that your NATs and firewalls are 
equipped to handle the case where you send a packet out through 
connection A and the reply comes back through connection B.



Re: Best Practices for Enterprise networks

2004-08-29 Thread Fergie (Paul Ferguson)


Asymmetric paths are a fact of life in the Internet.

- ferg

-- Iljitsch van Beijnum [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

On 30-aug-04, at 0:50, Tracy Smith wrote:

 Hello.  I am tyring to gauge what the Best Practices are for 
 Enterprise network connections to the Internet.  Specifically, to NAT 
 or not to NAT?  At what point should NAT-ting be performed ... 
 exclusively at the Egress point or at decentralized points?  What 
 about firewalling - centralized/decentralized?

Fortunately, I've never been in the position to make such decisions, 
but I can tell you one thing: if you have multiple connections to the 
internet, you had better make sure that your NATs and firewalls are 
equipped to handle the case where you send a packet out through 
connection A and the reply comes back through connection B.

--
Fergie, a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]