This chapter covers the following topics:
Components of SAFE Enterprise Network Design
The Enterprise Campus Layer
The Enterprise Edge Layer
This chapter introduces the SAFE network design for enterprises. This design was the first in a series of whitepapers developed by Cisco Systems to provide customers with tested, secure network architectures. The first paper, "SAFE: A Security Blueprint for Enterprise Networks" (also known as SAFE Enterprise), focused on a design for a large campus model. Unlike previous designs, SAFE Enterprise followed a new direction based on the concepts of modularity and "defense in depth." Of all the SAFE network designs, the enterprise blueprint is the most complexand rightly so. This blueprint describes a large campus network with multiple security requirements for data centers, e-commerce, employee remote access, business-to-business extranets, and remote branch offices. Additional considerations include the need for high availability throughout the design, load balancing, and out-of-band network management.