There are a number of things you should consider to boost the performance of your security infrastructure and get the best return on your investment. These include:
Rule Base Audit
Having too many rules on your firewall or any internet traffic based solution such as intrusion prevention scanners or web content filters can considerably slow down its performance. How the rules are structured also have an impact on speed.
As time goes on many administrators add new rules and services the business requires without taking an overall position on how this is effecting the performance of the hardware and dare we say security! The obvious solution seems to change the hardware, but Cygnia’s experience is that auditing the rule base can significantly speed up the throughput and increase the security. It also costs a fraction of changing the hardware and is much less disruptive to the business, it also gives everyone confidence that the perimeter is locked down and reliable.
Cygnia offers rule based audits followed by an independent Check certified vulnerability scan or penetration test provider, organisations have found doing this annually not only ticks the box for the auditors but improves the speed of critical business services. Contact info@cygnia.co.uk for more details.
Vendor Consolidation
Many of the larger security vendors are now offering multiple solutions, where historically they would just offer one. For example, Firewall vendors are now offering Integrated Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Filtering. Email content security vendors are offering Web Filtering and Data Leakage Prevention. Historically these add-ons had low functionality and didn’t stack up against more traditional vendors in that space. However, as the IT security market matures and vendors look for additional revenue streams these solutions are becoming more viable and allow organisations to make savings by consolidating licensing costs, reducing hardware needs, improve performance and interoperability and make management easier through centralised management consoles.
Cygnia works with a range of different vendors and can advise on where consolidation may improve performance and service, saving the organisation money. Contact info@cygnia.co.uk for more details.
Competitive Trade Out
Many vendors offer competitive trade outs for other vendors solutions. As discussed above in vendor consolidation there are benefits for having multiple solutions from the same vendor, not only are the extra services more cost effective, many vendors are offer up to 20% off the solution price if you move from a competitive vendor to their solution.
Currently Clearswift are offering 20% discount for organisations that move to their web solution, for more information click here, or contact info@cygnia.co.uk
Virtual Applications
Virtual security applications are still relatively new to the market, but with the rise in popularity of VMware and similar solutions IT services security vendors are starting to produce virtual versions of their solutions. Virtualising your security saves costs on hardware and provides greener IT services using less power.
If you currently want more information on virtual applications contact info@cygnia.co.uk
Managed Service
Managed services can take the headache out of operating your security infrastructure. By handing the day to day running of the infrastructure to a specialist company you can be confident that your security is being looked after by expert hands and is within an agreed Service Level Agreement (SLA). A good managed service provider should schedule all the updates and maintenance of the system, including performance optimisation and hardware upgrades providing assurance that the SLA is met and guaranteeing the business gets the service they require.
Hosted email and web filtering also provides resilience utilising the vendors infrastructure to deliver the service meaning that there are no hardware performance issues or failure worries. Most vendors have multiple data centres for failure and provide services within a well structures SLA.
For more information on managed / hosted services contact info@cygnia.co.uk for more details.
High Availability
Can you live without your internet gateway? If not it may be worth looking at a high availability solution. This is where an active or passive standby is ready to take over if the other fails. By having an active-active set up more throughput can be achieved, however, if one of the devices fails there needs to be enough capacity in the remaining hardware for the services to remain running. The other benefit of high availability is the ability to take part of the solution off line for servicing without disruption to the service.
For more information on managed / hosted services contact info@cygnia.co.uk for more details.
License Audit
Over time organisations with complex security infrastructures can accumulate more licenses for products and services than they need. This can increase the cost of subscription renewals and it’s good practice to look at these once a year. Some vendors allow trade ins for unused licenses so they can be put to upgrades, reducing their cost. If you have had a solution for a long time or are looking to renew your security subscription or are upgrading a review of your licenses may save you money.
For help with reviewing your licensing and advice on trade ins contact info@cygnia.co.uk for more information.