Security Silos are Uncool; Connected Security is Cool

I know, a rather abrupt title for a blog post, but you have to admit, it got your attention.  So what do I mean when I say, “silos are uncool?”  Here’s the deal.  In general, security solutions, whether they are firewalls, privileged account management solutions, encryption, whatever –all focus on their bit (or silo) of security.  Firewalls keep APTs out.  IAM solutions enable the business to track who did what with which access, and encryption solutions make sure data can’t be read by the bad guys.  And that’s all well and good. 

But could it be better?

At Dell, we know it can, and we call it Connected Security.  Just for minute, indulge me as we take your imagination muscles out for a brief stroll through the world of “what if.”

Imagine your IT infrastructure where all the security silos automagically talk to each other.  Imagine where they could share information and close the security gaps left by siloed solutions from multiple vendors.  Imagine an end to the days where you have to call or email multiple vendors to figure out which one “dropped the ball” that caused the latest breach.  And now, imagine doing all that from the same security budget you have today. 

We’re making it a reality at Dell Software.  Here are some examples.

In the simplest terms, there are several instances where we are taking security technology from one part of Dell Software and embedding it into the products from other groups to solve customer problems.  The best example of this is where we have taken Authentication Services technology, which enables single sign-on (SSO) to Unix and Linux boxes, and embedded it into products from Kace to enable SSO to the Kace infrastructure.

Perhaps a better example is where we have enabled our multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution to operate seamlessly with our secure remote access (SRA) product.  This provides the tightest authentication solution available from a single vendor.  That is, gone are the days when you have to purchase MFA and SRA from two different vendors.  One vendor, integrated solutions, integrated support.

And there is so much more that we have done.

But…have we completed the integration across the portfolio?  Heavens no.  It could be quarters or years, or perhaps we’ll never finish because you, our customers, will provide us a seemingly endless set of use cases upon which to build our roadmaps.  But that’s fine by us because it will set the course for our ultimate goal of securing infrastructures by removing those security silos, which are still uncool. 

About the Author: Bill Evans