Why specifying a new security framework and architecture means channel partners must tell their customers to stop chasing rainbows. It’s a tall order but achievable with the right approach and technology…
The traditional network edge is fast becoming a myth. Sorry. It’s going the way of the unicorn or finding a pot of gold at the rainbow’s end.
In a recent article, I stated that today’s virtualized environment has replaced the network boundary and that the ‘walls’ erected to protect businesses from external threats can no longer be built high, wide or hard enough. Building resilience across the network can now only come by embedding security within the network. To accomplish this, channel partners will now need to explain to customers why the security mindset has to be turned on its head, and why making the network protect itself is the ‘new normal’.
Starting at the infrastructure core and extending into the cloud, every part of the network needs to become an active and automated participant in security and a policy enforcement point. By employing a software-defined infrastructure, security can be distributed (both physically and virtually) across the entire organization and cloud assets, not just at the edges, making it pervasive and significantly more effective and manageable.
Using network information and cloud-based, real-time threat intelligence, Juniper’s software-defined secure network (SDSN) platform can identify and mitigate threats, both inside and outside the organization. By automating and orchestrating functions that enable all network resources to enforce security, not just the dedicated hardware, SDSN technology creates an ecosystem of security intelligence, with policy-based enforcement implemented dynamically to protect the network in real-time. Every aspect of the network becomes a key point of security detection and enforcement.
Our new security platform comprises several new product innovations towards accomplishing this.
Space Security Director is the central management system, managing firewalls and security policies from a single interface; Spotlight Secure is an open security intelligence platform linking security intelligence to policy enforcement for rapid protection against advanced threats; Sky Advance Threat Protection is a cloud-based, threat detection and prevention asset that actively identifies and stops attacks and SRX Series Services Gateways serve as next-generation firewalls with advanced, integrated threat intelligence, delivered on a scalable, high-performance and resilient security platform.
With many organizations still struggling with complex, defense-in-depth security, the growing sophistication of malicious threats aimed at bringing business down means the traditional model is now unmanageable at best and counter-productive at worst. Only by advising customers to undergo a fundamental change in mindset and to reset both the thinking and priorities needed to safeguard their company, can channel partners help them to benefit from a software-defined and secure infrastructure - one that expands enforcement beyond the firewall, using 100 percent of the network resources to protect 100 percent of the network.