IT Consulting & Professional Services
Networking, VLANs and firewalls
Good infrastructure needs a good network. We design the VLANs, segmentation, firewalls and connectivity that keep workloads reachable, separated and protected.
Your situation
Is this what you are looking for?
If any of these sound familiar, this service is for you.
- Everything sits on one flat network with no separation
- Nobody can explain why some firewall rules exist
- New hosts, sites or cloud links keep causing outages
- You plan to change firewall vendor or redesign VLANs
The work involved
What needs to be done
Whatever the size of the project, these are the steps that decide whether it succeeds.
- 1
Map the current network and traffic flows
List sites, VLANs, addresses and devices, and which systems talk to which. Without this picture, every change is a guess.
- 2
Agree what must be separated and what must stay reachable
Decide the zones for production, management, storage, backup, users and guests, and which flows between them are allowed.
- 3
Design the address plan, VLANs and firewall policy
Write the addressing, trunking, redundancy and rule design down for review before any device is touched.
- 4
Change in small, tested steps with a rollback
Apply the design in stages, test each stage against the agreed traffic flows and keep a way back for every change.
- 5
Document the result and set a rule review routine
Hand over diagrams, rule explanations and a review schedule, so the network does not drift back into confusion.
How we can help
How we can help
This is what we do for you, so your team can stay focused on running the business.
VLAN, IP and host networking
Addressing plan and VLANs for management, live migration or vMotion, storage, backup and workload networks, with virtual switch, trunking and link aggregation design for ESXi, Hyper-V and Nutanix hosts.
Ask about thisSegmentation and firewall architecture
Separation of production, management, DMZ and user networks, with perimeter and internal firewall design, zones, high availability, logging and documented traffic flows.
Ask about thisRule review and firewall migration
Review of existing rules, removal of unused or over-broad rules, a documented change process, and migration between firewall vendors with parallel testing and a rollback path.
Ask about thisLAN, WAN, wireless and SD-WAN
Campus and data center LAN design, WAN and SD-WAN options, enterprise Wi-Fi design and site surveys, and the documentation and testing that go with them.
Ask about thisDNS, load balancing and routing
DNS, DHCP and IP address design, load balancing for applications and gateways, and routing and switching configuration, including redundancy and failover.
Ask about thisVPN and remote access
Site-to-site VPN, remote access and SSL VPN with MFA, and connectivity to Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, with logging, high availability and testing.
Ask about thisFirewall platforms we work with
We configure, review and migrate across the major vendors, so you are not locked into one.
Next-generation firewalls
Open-source firewalls
Cloud-native firewalls
Hands-on skills
End-to-end delivery
Every network change follows the same path, with evidence at each step and a way back.
- 1
Design
- Current network and traffic flows
- VLAN, IP and zone design
- Firewall policy design
- Written design for your approval
- 2
Build
- Switching, routing and VLAN configuration
- Firewall and VPN configuration
- DNS and load balancing
- Logging and monitoring
- 3
Test
- Reachability between zones and sites
- Firewall rules against the design
- VPN and link failover
- Throughput and latency
- 4
Verify
- Results against acceptance criteria
- Security review of exposed paths
- Rollback plan confirmed
- Sign-off recorded with you
- 5
Deliver
- Network diagrams and as-built documents
- Operational runbooks
- Handover session for your team
- Defined support period
- A network design that matches your virtualization and cloud platforms
- Workloads separated by clear, enforced policy
- Smaller firewall rule sets that people understand
- Diagrams and documentation for audits and support teams
Common questions
Do you work with our existing firewall?
Yes, across all the major vendors listed above. We assess what you have, improve its configuration and, if it no longer fits, recommend a replacement and plan the migration.
Can you migrate from one firewall vendor to another?
Yes. We translate and clean up the rule base, test the new firewall in parallel and plan a cutover with a rollback path.
Can you redesign VLANs on a live network?
Yes, in controlled steps. We plan the change, test it on a small part of the network first, and keep a rollback plan for every step.
Can you connect our network to the cloud?
Yes. We set up VPN or dedicated connectivity to Azure, AWS or Google Cloud as part of a migration or hybrid design.
Related: Architecture and strategy, Cloud strategy and migration, Virtualization and VDI, File servers and storage, Identity and single sign-on. All it consulting & professional services
Have a project in mind?
Tell us what you are trying to achieve. We reply within one business day with next steps.