Application-Based Micro-Segmentation, Reimagined for the Hybrid Cloud World

This blog was written & authored by Eric Parizo- Senior Analyst at Omdia

Digital transformation is such a powerful phrase, one filled with potential. For me, it conjures a vision of enterprise IT as a hybrid cloud nirvana, in which application architectures function flawlessly, integration is automatic, and security just works, everywhere, all the time.

Yet for all the talk in the IT industry about the potential of digital transformation, I don’t know of any organizations that have achieved this nirvana. The reality, as many are discovering, is that digital transformation isn’t a destination but an ongoing journey and one with plenty of complexity, especially when it comes to security.

Consider the following scenarios:

• A growing building-products distributor is pushing toward the cloud following an acquisition, but unexpected complexity means months or years before most workloads can make the transition.
• A medical equipment company suddenly finds itself with exponentially increased product demand, but it lacks the process maturity needed to secure hundreds of workloads spanning multiple public clouds.
• A multinational accommodation and experience provider, recovering from a series of data breaches, needs to not only secure a highly distributed and highly heterogeneous data center environment but also demonstrate its policy compliance to watchful stakeholders.

These situations and many others highlight the importance of finding the right hybrid cloud data center security solution. For cybersecurity stakeholders, a primary challenge is determining what constitutes a wise investment. Organizations need a hybrid cloud security solution that can safeguard the existing data center, the desired end-state environment, and the many small and large steps in between.

That’s why Cisco Tetration is such a fascinating solution. Tetration is a multifaceted data center security offering. It provides many features to help enterprises secure all phases of hybrid cloud digital transformation, regardless of whether that journey is just beginning with a few virtual workloads, is a small public cloud deployment, or encompasses a vast, global data center environment.

At the heart of Tetration is its ability to secure workloads using application-based micro-segmentation. This allows behavior-based and attribute-based security policies to be assigned to application workloads dynamically, as needed, based on asset characteristics.

Using application-based micro-segmentation, Tetration can deliver the best of both worlds: highly granular, controlled perimeters around cloud-based applications and automated provisioning of workload security policy. Organizations can assign each workload exactly the security controls it needs, while ensuring security isn’t an inhibitor to fast, efficient hybrid data center operations.

These attributes are increasingly important with today’s business demands. An unprecedented global pandemic has only accelerated the need for digital transformation. Enterprises need not only visibility and control of cloud assets but also secure access to a newly distributed workforce. And as zero-trust access becomes increasingly critical to sound enterprise security models, tying security policy directly to applications is a security control every organization needs.

Application-based micro-segmentation is just one of the numerous features Tetration offers for real-time visibility and control across the hybrid cloud data center. Additionally, Tetration supports numerous operating systems, vendor platforms, and cloud environments, meaning Tetration can adapt to practically every hybrid cloud data center security scenario that enterprises face.

To that end, Omdia has partnered with Cisco to create the white paper Cisco Tetration: Securing All Phases of the Hybrid Cloud Journey. We invite you to download this free paper; it offers clear, concise details on Tetration’s most powerful features for hybrid cloud data center security and puts these capabilities in context with the real-world challenges organizations like yours are struggling with.

We’re confident you’ll see that Tetration offers the flexibility to address the security challenges of today’s data centers in transition as well as the challenges digital transformation will bring about in the months and years to come.

Eric Parizo is a Senior Analyst for Omdia’s Cybersecurity Accelerator research service.

 

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