Tufin highlights three key challenges for data center migration in 2015
Morristown, NJ – January 20, 2015 - Tufin®, the market-leading provider of Security Policy Orchestration solutions, is spearheading a drive to help companies understand and overcome the network and security challenges involved in migrating data centers. The company has outlined three key challenges to effective data center migration faced by businesses - including application connectivity management, security and compliance - and how these can be overcome with the help of Tufin’s Orchestration Suite.
Javvad Malik, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Security Practice, 451 Research says: “Data center migrations aren’t a simple process and there are common traps that companies fall into. These range from lack of knowledge-sharing, over-reliance on firewalls, insufficient change management processes and poor roll back capabilities. During the migration process, assets like businesses-critical applications have to be documented properly - not only to maintain connectivity, but to ensure compliance. However, many companies fail to do the basics. This is where offerings like Tufin’s Security Policy Orchestration tools can help to accurately record changes, provide a helicopter view of network connections and ensure security and compliance isn’t negatively impacted.”
The key challenges are:
1. The need to understand your business applications in detail
Businesses lack knowledge of their applications and the various systems they connect to and depend on before the migration takes place. This is leading to applications not working and unplanned downtime as they struggle to pinpoint and rectify any unforeseen problems. What’s required is end-to-end application management, including tools for rapid application discovery, managing dependencies and business ownership across data centers, and increased control with application visibility.
2. Minimizing disruption to the business during a migration
As well as application visibility, businesses require a well-defined workflow process to ensure migration runs smoothly and to deadline. Often businesses lack an understanding of how network changes impact application business continuity and are unable to avoid human error in application and service migrations. Business need to improve visibility and control with workflow process automation, including real-time alerts about network changes that impact business continuity, and offer full automation for application and service migration.
3. Ensuring systems are secure and compliant
The complexity of today’s organizational systems and networks means any changes to system and application connectivity now require myriad configuration changes to firewalls and security products. Many businesses try to manage the process manually which is not feasible, particularly during a time-critical migration where you’re running two platforms in parallel. Businesses need to manage security and compliance policies centrally, with real-time alerts when there are any violations, and have the ability to pinpoint and automate any required configuration changes to firewalls and security systems.
Migrations are on the up as more companies seek to take advantage of private and public cloud platforms, consolidate data centers following mergers and acquisitions, or modernize aging infrastructures to improve efficiency and agility.
A migration project can be one of the most risky and complex undertakings an enterprise faces. Gartner notes that seven out of ten of data center migrations will incur significant delays or unplanned downtime. In addition, there’s a high risk that moving to a new platform will inadvertently introduce security holes or break compliance requirements.
The problem is compounded by the fact so few companies today have had hands-on experience of these challenges. The last major wave of migration was from mainframes to client/server in the 1990s, and the people who oversaw that transition have now largely retired or moved on.
In a new white paper, Tame the Network and Security Challenges of a Data Center Migration, Tufin aims to close this gap in organizations’ knowledge by laying out how to plan and execute a smooth, secure migration with the help of the Tufin Orchestration Suite, the company’s market-leading solution for security and policy orchestration and automation.
Reuven Harrison, CTO and co-founder, Tufin said: “Data center migrations have become a complex web of changes where many network owners are failing to connect the dots of where application and services are talking to each other. Whether it’s a physical or cloud migration, unless businesses take steps to get to grips with their network topology and centralize control of security and compliance, they risk downtime or service delays which will impact business performance.”
To find out more about the challenges and market trends in data center migration, please join 451 Research’s Javvad Malik and Reuven Harrison for a webinar on 21 January at 8am PST (11am EST, 4pm GMT) on Avoiding the Data Center Migration ‘Security Trap’. Click here to reserve your place.
Tufin will also be available to talk in person at booth no. E55 at Cisco Live in Milan, Italy from 27-29 January. Click here to schedule a meeting with us.
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About Tufin
Tufin® is the leader in Security Policy Orchestration, automating and accelerating network infrastructure changes while maintaining security and compliance. By improving network change processes, organisations using the Tufin Orchestration Suite™ will have a positive impact on the business by reducing the time and cost spent implementing network changes by up to 80%. Taking a holistic view of IT, the Tufin Orchestration Suite helps organisations automate security and efficiency into day-to-day operations, enabling them to be more agile and leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage. Founded in 2005, Tufin serves more than 1,400 customers in industries from telecom and financial services to energy, transportation and pharmaceuticals. Tufin partners with leading vendors including Check Point, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, F5, Stonesoft, Blue Coat, McAfee and BMC Software, and is known for technological innovation and dedicated customer service.
For more information visit www.tufin.com, or follow Tufin on:
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