Akamai Extending Industry-Leading Segmentation Solution to Hybrid Cloud Environments
- Akamai extends its industry-leading segmentation solution, Guardicore, to hybrid cloud environments.
- The solution is initially available for Microsoft Azure deployments via Azure Marketplace.
- Akamai Guardicore Segmentation helps reduce attack surfaces and contain attacks targeting cloud-native workloads.
- Benefits include faster time to policy deployment, single network governance, and reduced management complexity.
- A survey shows 33% of IT decision-makers plan to increase their use of distributed cloud services for security and reliability.
- Nearly half (48%) of ITDMs feel security tools are missing or underdeveloped for a distributed cloud world.
- The PR emphasizes the need for better security tools to protect workloads in the cloud.
- Akamai Guardicore Segmentation addresses challenges like lack of visibility into application behavior and governance issues between DevOps and SecOps teams.
- The solution offers comprehensive agentless cloud-native visibility, hybrid enforcement engine, reputation analysis, threat intelligence firewall capabilities, and scalability.
- The goal is to provide security practitioners with comprehensive visibility and control across all cloud environments.
- The solution architecture ensures data security within the cloud environment and scales automatically.
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Insights
The introduction of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation into hybrid cloud environments represents a significant advancement in network security, particularly in the public cloud sector. The ability to manage segmentation policies seamlessly across public cloud platforms addresses a critical pain point for security professionals, namely the reduction of attack surfaces and containment of cloud-native workload attacks.
From a cybersecurity perspective, the comprehensive, agentless visibility and enforcement that Akamai Guardicore offers is a noteworthy feature. It enables administrators to gain near-real-time insights into network flows and application dependencies. This facilitates better collaboration between DevOps and SecOps teams, which is essential for robust cloud network security governance. The integration of reputation analysis and threat intelligence further enhances the tool's capability to swiftly detect and respond to breaches, a key factor in minimizing the impact of security incidents.
Moreover, the hybrid enforcement engine that leverages both agent-based and agentless points is a flexible approach that can adapt to various network policies and architectures, simplifying the implementation process for organizations. This scalability and the assurance that data remains within the cloud environment are crucial for businesses looking to maintain data sovereignty and compliance with data protection regulations.
As organizations increasingly adopt public and multi-cloud strategies, the demand for improved security tools tailored to these environments has grown. The survey cited, indicating that 33% of IT decision-makers plan to increase their use of distributed cloud services for security and reliability, highlights the market potential for solutions like Akamai Guardicore Segmentation.
One of the key benefits of this solution is its ability to address governance issues between DevOps and SecOps teams. By providing a single interface with one set of controls, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation effectively bridges the gap between development and security operations, fostering better policy deployment and governance across data centers.
The decision to make Akamai Guardicore Segmentation initially available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace is strategic, considering Azure's significant market share in cloud services. This move is likely to facilitate adoption among Azure's extensive customer base and could serve as a catalyst for further expansion into other cloud platforms.
Finally, the scalability of the solution is a critical feature for businesses that are experiencing growth or have variable workloads. The ability of the architecture to scale within the cloud environment ensures that security measures can keep pace with the changing needs of the business without compromising performance or protection.
The release of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation into the hybrid cloud market is timely, considering the industry's ongoing shift towards distributed cloud services and the increased focus on cybersecurity. The survey's finding that nearly half of IT decision-makers feel current security tools are underdeveloped for a distributed cloud world underscores the significant market opportunity for Akamai's solution.
The emphasis on reducing management complexity and the promise of a faster time to policy deployment are likely to resonate with IT professionals who are tasked with maintaining security across increasingly complex cloud environments. As such, Akamai's positioning in the market could be strengthened by this offering, potentially influencing the company's stock performance as investors look for companies that are innovating in high-demand sectors like cloud security.
Furthermore, the partnership with Microsoft Azure provides a strong distribution channel that can enhance Akamai's market penetration. The choice to launch on Azure Marketplace before their own Akamai Connected Cloud platform suggests a strategic approach to leverage existing cloud infrastructure and customer bases, which could lead to increased sales and a stronger competitive position in the cloud security segment.
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation is available first to public-cloud customers via Microsoft Azure Marketplace
Thirty-three percent of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) intended to increase their use of distributed cloud services to improve security and reliability, according to a recent survey commissioned by Akamai and conducted by ClearPath Strategies. However, nearly half (
While organizations of all sizes are implementing public cloud strategies to innovate and realize new efficiencies, challenges remain. Leveraging Akamai Guardicore Segmentation in the cloud helps organizations address a lack of visibility into application behavior, the need for multiple policies across cloud providers, and governance issues between DevOps and SecOps teams.
"Public and multi-cloud environments are crucial to most organizations' business operations, but they lack the native visibility and security controls required to effectively lock down a cloud. For clouds to be secure, security practitioners must be able to see which applications, workloads, and traffic flows are moving within the environment," said Pavel Gurvich, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Enterprise Security at Akamai. "Applying a microsegmentation policy in the cloud can give security practitioners comprehensive visibility and control across all cloud environments, from a single interface with one set of controls, without the need for agents. We can protect business-critical applications — whether they are on-premises, in the cloud, or on legacy servers — while reducing the number of security solutions that need to be managed."
Benefits of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation in the cloud include:
- Comprehensive agentless cloud-native visibility and enforcement enables administrators to visualize cloud workloads using a near-real-time interactive map of true network flows, understanding the application dependencies and bringing together DevOps and SecOps teams in cloud network security governance.
- Hybrid enforcement engine leveraging multiple enforcement points allows an organization to simply define the intent of network policy and have the Akamai Guardicore Segmentation policy engine take care of the rest, dynamically deciding which agent-based and agentless enforcement points are used across the data center.
- Integrated reputation analysis and threat intelligence firewall capabilities are designed to reduce time to detection and incident response time in the event of a breach.
- Scalable and secure solution ensures data does not leave your cloud environment and solution architecture scales automatically within it.
Learn more about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and how it can contain attacks within public cloud environments.
About Akamai
Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. Akamai Connected Cloud, a massively distributed edge and cloud platform, puts apps and experiences closer to users and keeps threats farther away. Learn more about Akamai's cloud computing, security, and content delivery solutions at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X, formerly known as Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies
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