Exclusive: How to maximise the value of your security and monitoring tools

Securing digital assets and infrastructure has become a central priority for regional enterprises in the past few months. A growing wave of cyberattacks has faced organisations in the Middle East and many of these have implications for these company’s reputation, finances and overall growth.

Naturally, this has led to an increased interest in bolstering cybersecurity tools and resources. According to a survey by PwC, 43% of Middle East CEOs are planning to increase investments in cybersecurity and data privacy by 10% or more over the next three years. Moreover, 41% of these leaders think that their organisation should be doing more to measure cybersecurity. The ever-evolving threat environment has made it increasingly necessary to be vigilant. Moreover, with new models of working and the increasing popularity of digital platforms, organisations now have an expanded threat surface to protect.

Thus, many businesses invest in security and monitoring tools to understand and safeguard their digital infrastructures. The cybersecurity market in the Middle East & Africa was valued at US$1903.59 million in 2020 and it is expected to reach US$2,893.4 million by 2026. 

Return on investment (ROI) is a critical consideration when purchasing new technology. However, after investing in a number of security and monitoring systems, many businesses wonder how to get the most out of their investments.

Monitoring tool challenges

There are four major issues when it comes to getting the most value out of monitoring tools in modern workplace networks. To begin with, delivering only the appropriate data to each monitoring tool is challenging, as different devices require different sorts of data. Additionally, maintaining optimal network security is a difficulty for businesses.

Another prevalent concern is keeping track of tool expenditures, as monitoring tools can be costly. This is particularly true if there are several linkages (both physical and virtual) where data must be collected and tools must be inserted. Some engineers dedicate specific tools to specific links, which increases the number of tools required. Before too long, they have under-utilised (i.e., unnecessary) tools due to the architecture design. Furthermore, ensuring that monitoring tool capabilities keep up with developments in network technology is an issue. Whenever network technologies change, interoperability with the instruments needs to be re-analysed and modified. In some cases, new, special-purpose tools may also be required.

What is the solution?

Incorporating a visibility architecture into the network design is the most cost-effective solution to these problems. Typical components of a visibility architecture include taps, packet brokers, application intelligence and the monitoring tools themselves.

A visibility architecture aids monitoring effectiveness by ensuring correct access to the data businesses require when they need it. This enables enterprises to remove visibility and security gaps while also extending the life of existing monitoring systems.

A well-designed visibility architecture can do the following:

• Increase monitoring tool utilisation and useful life by removing unnecessary traffic to the monitoring tools. Moreover, this pools the enterprises’ monitoring tools instead of dedicating them to specific network links.

• Increase monitoring tool efficiency by offloading non-core functions to network packet brokers.

• Increase monitoring utilisation by integrating virtual and physical data centre monitoring strategies.

• Increase monitoring effectiveness by leveraging features such as high availability.

All of these features help maximise the value of existing monitoring tools. Overall, a well-designed visibility architecture saves money in both the short and long term. It also helps businesses make full use of their instruments’ processing capacity, allowing them to operate for extended periods of time. A good visibility architecture fortifies applications and security, allowing organisations to make the most of their investments.

By Kelly Ambriz, International Business & Market Development Manager, Government Sector, Keysight Technologies, Inc.