Who SENTRA is for, and how it is deployed
Enterprises, SMEs and homes protect themselves; telcos, ISPs, MSPs and data centres sell protection as a service. Four deployment patterns cover both.
Protect yourself#
Enterprises, government agencies, banks, universities, SMEs and home offices use the shields directly:
- Web App · ATS for websites, portals and APIs — online banking, e-commerce, booking systems, customer portals, public sector services.
- Internet · NTS for the whole internet line — mail servers, VPNs, remote access and every other service behind the line, not just the website.
- Both together when an organisation has public websites and wants its whole line cleaned.
Each shield is managed from its own console, licensed on its own and updated from the signed release server.
Sell protection as a service#
Telcos, ISPs, MSPs and data centres run SENTRA multi-tenant:
- SENTRA GUARD onboards customers, provisions a firewall for each on the operator's nodes, bills them, and shows the whole operation on one radar.
- Web App · ATS nodes protect customers' websites; Internet · NTS nodes clean customers' Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) lines.
- SENTRA VIEW sits above several GUARDs (regions, brands, subsidiaries) for fleet-wide tickets, billing, prices, access and updates.
Four deployment patterns#
| Pattern | Products | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| A · Protect your websites | Stand-alone ATS (same server or dedicated edge) | One organisation with one or more websites |
| B · Clean your internet line | Stand-alone NTS (VM or appliance) | An office, branch, SME or home on one or more internet lines |
| C · Protection as a service | One GUARD + ATS and NTS nodes | An operator starting out, or one region |
| D · A fleet of GUARDs | VIEW + several GUARDs + nodes | Operators with several regions, brands or data centres |
Patterns can grow: a stand-alone shield can later be adopted by a GUARD, and a GUARD can later be linked under a VIEW without starting again.
ATS placement#
| Placement | How it works | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Same server | ATS runs beside the website and forwards over loopback | Single site, trials |
| Dedicated edge | ATS has its own small server with the public address and certificates; the web server sits behind it on a private address | Production (recommended) |
NTS placement#
| Mode | How it works | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Bridge segment | Bump in the wire between the internet router and the network; no IP addressing changes | Add protection to an existing line without touching the network design |
| Routed segment | NTS is the gateway, with NAT, port forwards, VPN and multi-WAN | New sites, SMEs and homes where NTS replaces the router's firewall |
On an operator network NTS can also be a routed hop for customer prefixes or sit inline at layer 2 in front of the line, as the network design requires.
Not sure? Start in Monitor mode. Both shields show what they would stop on your real traffic, so you can size and tune before anything is blocked.