Directory:Superna

Superna
Type	Private company
Founded
Headquarters	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Contact	Superna Contact
Reference	www.superna.net

Superna is a privately held software company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The company's main focus and knowledge is with optical networking and storage networking interoperability. The company has offices in Ottawa as well as in Timisoara, Romania.

About

Superna solutions are used to plan, secure, and qualify the interoperability of storage area networks. Although the company's main focus is on optical networking and storage networking interoperability, the company also has expertise in software product development, OEM products, and custom developed applications. Superna has built applications for various optical network providers in these areas:

• Element management systems
• Network management applications
• Optical network power balancing systems
• Optical storage area networking and interoperability
• Optical network planning systems
• Wireless planning systems
• Integration of geospatial technologies in managing networks
• Developing mediation adapters based on TL-1, SNMP, or CLI protocol for optical and storage network devices
• Integration of event correlation and analysis with northbound systems and protocols
• Oracle, MySQL integration and applications
• Web-based frameworks such as SOAP
• Java and .NET development

Superna customers include telecommunications and storage equipment manufacturers, as well as telecommunications service providers.

Encryption Key Management

Superna's Network Security Portal allows enterprises to lease encryption equipment while still maintaining visibility and control over their encryption keys. This solution can also integrate enterprise-wide key management products to allow end-to-end solutions from data at rest to data in flight. The Network Security Portal is used by service providers, allowing them to offer encryption as a service. It is also used by equipment vendors, who can brand and customize it to enable new services on their product platforms. The Network Security Portal can split network security management and monitoring tasks between the enterprise and the service provider. It is designed to solve network security challenges.

SAN Testing

Superna has support in network technologies including distance storage interoperability, network security, WAN optimization, optical network modeling, and the development of network management systems. Superna has invested to build a facility for product verification and certification, which is used by network equipment manufacturers to qualify their products and undertake performance and verification testing during equipment release cycles. The facility is also used by Superna developers to test the company's own software product solutions. Test facilities include EMC storage arrays, servers, Brocade and Cisco fibre channel switches, optical and Ethernet devices, and fibre optics to generate distance. Superna has a partnership with EMC and Brocade on storage interoperability and in the development of solutions and applications that are used to extend storage over distance.

Network Planning

Superna offers a product called SupernaNET, a set of applications that can help service providers and enterprises plan and deploy their optical networks. SupernaNET has automated planning functions to assist with optical network link budget and engineering, optical network virtual simulators with scaling capability that are used to model network conditions and events in support of platform and software development and operation, and optical device mediation and root cause analysis support for EMC Ionix. The software architecture includes a web services model integrated with geospatial technology from Google Maps and Autodesk MapGuide. The Optical Network Plug-In for EMC Ionix collects data and provides a root-cause correlation capability to resolve network issues. It can be run as either a web-based application or as a plug-in integrated into the EMC Ionix Service Assurance Manager. The Network Planning Engine is a web- or API-based optical network planning tool used to engineer networks. It can be run standalone or integrated with other network link-budget engineering tools. The Cloud Simulator is a virtual appliance that simulates large-scale optical networks, providing a means of planning and testing network modifications before implementing them. It can also be used to quickly launch large-scale networks to simulate actual optical network deployment and provide a simple method to replicate customer support cases.

Partners

Superna works with a number of different information communication technology innovators:

• EMC
• Brocade
• VMware
• HP
• Autodesk
• MySQL

Superna is part of the Microsoft Developer Network. It is also a member of GITA.

Encryption Key Management White Paper

This article contains information from the white paper about encryption key management posted on the Superna web site. This paper examines the state of WAN-based encryption and discusses solutions to

secure the on ramp for hosted services. To view the paper in its entirety, please see External Links.

A Period of Change and Innovation

There has been a lot of change in the communications industry in the last fifteen years. The rise of the Internet in the mid 1990s fuelled the DotCom and TeleCom economies. During this time, there was lots

of investment in Internet infrasctructure. By the end of the 1990s, there were many service providers with modern networks. However, these service providers had very little idea of how to extract value from

revenue-generating services. By the turn of the millenium, the DotCom economy collapsed and many service providers disappeared. By 2005, many service providers retreated and the industry entered a period of

consolidation.

The Internet continued to evolve during this period. Broadband access became ubiquitous and highspeed connectivity was now available to everyone. These days, wireless Internet options allow users to connect

with each other anywhere and at any time. It's easy and affordable to access high speed networks.

New applications are appearing all the time, running "in the cloud", but with very little thought about security. With so many new network investments occurring, the level of competition is high. This

competition means that small and medium businesses now face the same challenges as larger companies. However, smaller companies lack the large IT budget and the skills to properly implement security

solutions.

Larger enterprises are striving to reduce their IT budgets. This means reduction and consolidation of network infrastructure, centralizing applications and data to locations where IT expertise is located,

and reducing the number of unique instances (and costs) of software applications. All of these dynamics have created new opportunities for service providers to evolve.

The Emergence of a New Breed of Service Provider

Hosted Managed Service Providers (MSPs) provide value added solutions to enterprise and business customers of all sizes. Hosted MSPs offer services such as application hosting, online business enablement, IT

consolidation, and Software as a Service (SaaS). 

Hosted MSPs ow nand operate data centers and offer advanced outsourced IT services. Data centers house servers and storage devices which remotely run applications from many enterprise customers. Some hosted

MSPs also own some network infrastructure; the majority, however, do not.

In order to connect remote enterprise customers to their applications and data, hosted MSPs must lease bandwidth from 3rd party connectivity service providers. The hosted MSP data center will also include

secure co-location areas where multiple service providers will deploy their equipment, which is to be used to backhaul traffic from enterprise customer locations.

Hosted applications require high bandwidth, availability, and security. MSPs that ensure end-to-end security of their offering will take a larger market share of enterprise customers looking to outsource

applications. Offering an encrypted on ramp to hosted services will differentiate the service in the market.

Most 3rd party service providers offer Ethernet-based networking solutions. Ethernet Private Lines are the most commonly leased services by the MSP. In order to take advantage of MSP and Cloud Offers,

enterprises need encrypted solutions from service providers.

Hosting and Cloud Computing Need Encryption

The Superna Network Security Portal (NSP) meets all of the following criteria for a company:

• separate device monitoring and management from security management
• separate GUI for managing security for the security organization
• separate user login for security management with role-based access
• encrypted connection to network elements
• scheduled key rotation based on corporate standards
• network-wide view of all devices performing encryption
• ability to integrate with 3rd party key management platforms

NSP reduces the barriers to outsourcing expensive encryption devices for service providers. It allows service providers to acquire encryption as an Operational Expense as opposed to a Capital Expenditure,

while still retaining control of information security.

NSP has been deployed in military, financial, government and business consulting market segments. It has been integrated by equipment makers in enterprise and optical market segments into their encryption

market offerings.

References

1. http://superna.net/san_testing.php
2. http://superna.net/encryption_key_management.php
3. http://superna.net/network_planning.php
4. http://superna.net/about_superna.php

External Links

• Superna Website
• White Paper: Securing the Cloud, A Perspective
• Superna's Blog