De Beers is the world's largest diamond mining house and is the industry leader in the exploration, mining, recovery, sorting, valuation and marketing of diamonds. The network supports De Beers' South African corporate offices as well as its South African mining sites. The main reason the mining giant underwent the upgrade of its network backbone was to ensure the highest levels of security, availability and throughput for the new SAP system it is in the process of deploying across its South African sites. The SAP system requires the highest performance and resiliency from a networking infrastructure. That is why De Beers selected the Enterasys Secure Networks solution as well as the ER-16 routers, the benefits of which include continuity and enhanced the control over network traffic. The Secure Networks Solution includes 10-Gigabit Ethernet technology from ER-16 routers at the network core, ensuring high performance. The remainder of the network features Enterasys Matrix N-Series switches at the distribution layer to provide a high-performance infrastructure within a secure networking environment. "The performance and security features that come with the Enterasys solution are easily configurable and as yet unchallenged by any of its competitors in terms of price and performance," said Mayan Mathen, Network Architect at Bytes Technology Networks South Africa. As corporations continue to consolidate communications services, the network continues to become a more critical business tool, and security, resiliency, performance and support for converged or multi-service networking is growing. Important features such as support for policy-based networking, per-user authentication, quality of service and advanced network management are essential to maximizing network availability and ensuring business continuity. "De Beers is another example of an Enterasys Secure Network in action--one in which security is pervasive across all elements of the network. Enterasys' Secure Networks approach is vastly superior to the traditional security method, in which security devices are added on to the existing infrastructure," said Mark Aslett, president of Enterasys Networks. "Our integrated approach enables customers to build high-performance, highly resilient Secure Networks that deliver continuity and control to drive real-time business communications." The Enterasys Secure Networks Advantage Enterasys' industry-leading Secure Networks technology and solutions provide the highest infrastructure security available today. Secure Networks delivers the most granular level of security, providing visibility and control down to the network device, individual user and application level. This enables enterprises to quickly and easily detect, assess, locate and protect against attacks. This unmatched security comes from the integrated policy-based management software architecture that works with the embedded security capabilities Enterasys designs into its entire product line. This unique approach offers significant operational and business benefits, unmatched by vendor offerings that add hardware or software to multiple network access points in an attempt to increase security. In fact, Secure Networks technology can even make networks with competitors' equipment more secure. Bytes Technology Networks, a division of Bytes Technology Group South Africa (Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of the JSE-listed Bytes Technology Group (BTG) and a member of the Altron group, provides its clients with world-class managed services and networks, based on platforms, processes and methodologies from acknowledged industry leaders. Bytes Technology Networks' offering include: Software licensing and consultancy, software asset management and auditing, enterprise and storage solutions, managed and outsourced support services, network security, and computing mobility. BTG includes: Bytes Technology Networks, Bytes Business Solutions, Bytes Software, Bytes Technology Group UK, Bytes Document Solutions (formerly Xerox SA), Bytes Specialised Solutions (formerly NDS), Plato Computer Services (UK), Bytes Communication Systems (formerly Alcatel Business Systems) and Digital Healthcare Solutions. BTG have offices throughout South Africa, as well as in Africa and the UK. For more information about Bytes Technology Group please visit: www.btgroup.co.za