Why do You Need Centralized Security Management?
The business environment has changed dramatically over the past two years, companies now based on physical and virtual environments deployed in private or public Clouds, especially to improve the availability of services and boost trade capacity.
The variety of tools and software (which make it all possible) has still some drawbacks, for example, the security and the most efficient and cost effective to manage these environments. The architectural problems securing VMs sharing the same physical resources stack (CPU, memory, storage) without affecting their performance is considered difficult.
1. An agent for all environments
System administrators and security experts want to deploy a security solution in any environment as quickly and easily as possible. This can be achieved through the deployment of an agent capable of automatically adapting to the machine targeted whether physical or virtual, and identify on which operating system it is supposed to install. Typically, a system administrator manually deploys an installation kit for each instance, an operation that takes time.
Also, having a security solution that can be imported to run on any virtualization platform accelerates the deployment process, by simply loading a virtual appliance in any type of hypervisor. This key deployment option in hand is essential when deployment time is a critical factor for migration, security and infrastructure maintenance.
2. A single security console = minimal management effort
Consolidate security control for physical devices, virtual and even mobile devices via a single security console provides increased visibility throughout the enterprise network and facilitates the deployment of security tools on all managed devices.
Rationalization of security activities and eliminating point solutions is a huge advantage – it saves a lot of time, but can also help in the analysis of safety data. Reduce security management efforts is always a key factor for system administrators and IT to focus on other aspects of security infrastructure to enhance the protection of corporate data.
3. Integration of virtualization services and directory
When managing virtual environments, you need to use virtualization solutions such as VMware, Citrix, etc. because major infrastructure typically uses fragmented systems regarding hypervisors. This is usually a problem when choosing a security solution, because finding a product that supports all types of hypervisors and offering the same capabilities for each of them is usually a headache.
Also, use a product that has the ability to actively monitor all memory processes without the need to deploy an agent on each VM is particularly difficult in the face of a wide range of hypervisors. So find the solution that works with all of these criteria would be a huge advantage in terms of management.
4. A centralized protection = no bottleneck
System administrators worry about having to manage security updates delivered individually to the virtual machines at the same time. Although this is obviously a good thing from the security point of view, a heavy consumption of resources can lead to stoppages, bottlenecks and even increased costs due to the dynamic resource allocation.
A virtual centralized security server that machines can use to transfer most of the security tasks (file system analysis, memory, processes, registry base, both on Windows and Linux) in using a caching mechanism on many levels, ensures optimal performance for all VMs. Load balancing of all analysis and delivery activities of the security updates to virtual machines without causing network performance drops or bottlenecks is not only a major advantage, it should also be a requirement.
In summary
A unified platform to manage all endpoints (virtual and physical) of the company is not just a convenience, it is an obligation. With tours databases to the Cloud, sometimes located in different physical locations around the world and the devices that play different roles depending on the business requirements, centralized management solution for security is required.
Even ignoring the costs of licenses (usually quite flexible in terms of options, e.g., CPU or VM) companies have much more to gain financially by taking such products, rather than investing in point solutions which are difficult to manage, probably expensive in terms of cost and result in making important resources.
