Aruba Event: Identify security threats

With the workforce going mobile, we dont merely work sitting on our seats

anymore and servers are no longer individual entities, but instead are a part of

a cloudwhether public or private depends on the network security," said Vijay

Sethi, VP, IT, Hero Honda and set the ball rolling at Dataquest Aruba CIO

roundtable Delhi chapter.

On whether in an extended enterprise spread across multiple geographies,

management of network poses any major challenge, Sethi went on to add that over

a period of time, the definition of enterprises also changed. From 200 employees

sitting in a closed boundary wall, today enterprises include their own employees

and extended business partners (dealers and supply chain partners) who want to

access their systems seamlessly. This resulted in the merger of LAN and WAN.

While security definitely is a major concern, however, there are technologies

to address the security aspect even though they might be costly. CIOs seemed to

agree that the connectivity speed was the major issue. Even though people are

mobile, yet they want to have the same connectivity speed which they would get

while working on a wired network.

Major General, Mhaisale reasoned that the security is more of a cultural

aspect and the cost of maintaining security has to be reasonable. He said, "In

defense for instance, security is a very costly lapse; similar is the case in a

business environment where a breach of your personal, financial data is a costly

lapse. Therefore, you need to identify the threat and bring in multi-point

authentication. One needs to analyze the implications of a security breach." He

went on to quote the Hero Honda example where a breach of competency data can

prove costly if it lands with a competitor.

One has to realize that no system is foolproof and in the migration of

communication systems from wired to LAN platform, one needs to have a judicious

mix of transmission policies.

Will there ever be a complete movement from wired to wireless? Well, the CIOs

didnt seem to think so as Praveen Khandelwal, GM, IT, Airports Authority of

India rightly pointed out that one cant be sure that everything will be moved

to a wireless environment. For instance, AAI has certain applications where

wired is the only solution. Similarly, Wi-Fi in an airport cannot be offered via

a wired connection to all passengers, one needs to have a wireless network for

that.

Hilal Khan, CIO, Honda Motors says, "But, we also have to realize that how

much effort anyone will put for tapping into my network or into my raw accounts

data. For me, the single biggest challenge when implementing a network is the

implementation part of it."

Daya Prakash, CIO, LG India seems to agree with Honda Motors CIO that the

paradigm is shifting with the trend tilting towards wireless. Network security,

however, continues to pose a major challenge. But, for an organization which is

heavily dependent on the supply chain, one cannot put all in a boundary and then

ask them to work, just because security cannot be ensured. Prakash says, "My

partners are just like my extended employees. Just because I do not give them

salary does not make them any lesser than my on-roll employees and I have to

open the network access to them."

A point that seemed to be emerging from the discussion was that while

maintaining a balance between wired and wireless environment, how does one take

care of the cost?

General Mhaisae said that even though iris scanning is the highest form of

security, one cannot do away with the high costs associated with such forms of

security. Therefore, one has to take into consideration the cost factor too.

Another vital issue plaguing most CIOs, especially those coming from the

services industry like ITeS, was compliance. Navtej Matharu, CIO, Serco BPO

while clarifying how his business requirements were vastly differentbecause he

did not have to deal with multiple vendorsdid not discount the high security

threats faced by the BPO industry since the workforce is mobile. He said, "We

have to watch out for internal threat since the outside threat is easier to

control."

The answer lies in finding the right mix or one can go to the extreme of

tying ones wireless to IP and then put an encryption key on top of it. Matharu

deals with the threat by keeping his production network separate from his

wireless network.

What can possibly explain the shying away from going all wireless? Perhaps

the cost of having a wireless network was one of the hindrances, according to

Sethi. Khan added that the cost of having a wireless network was 1.3 times

higher than a wired network. However, Khans premises are 100 % wireless and are

seamlessly integrated.

However, Matharu pointed out that sometimes in a wired network, there are

certain machines that get an IP from a virtual machine; and the moment the

virtual machine shuts down, that IP is no longer available. For instance, during

a project with the UK government, he had to ensure that all the servers were

based locally. Obviously this added to the cost.

Major General raised another valid point when he pointed out that the last

mile connectivity was proving to be a major hindrance. In HDTVs the set top box

is not capable of handling the rate of transmission, therefore, one needs to

take the complete end-to-end connectivity in view.

Keerti Melkote of Aruba Networks asked the CIOs that why they would prefer to

use MPLS even if low cost broadband was available. And, the CIOs had different

views. While Sethi was satisfied with MPLS as it was used for connecting all the

partners; Matharu was using it as a backup tool. Khan of Honda was positive that

time would come when we would use broadband as the primary connectivity while

MPLS will be used as a backup.

Major General Mhaisale was confident that the broadband adoption in the

country would pick up after the Prime Ministers announcement of connecting all

villages in India through broadband.

The session ended in a fruitful and engaging dialog between Aruba and the

CIOs as the company shared its experiences in working on different projects and

was hopeful of bringing in the best practices for Indian clients.

Stuti Das



stutid@cybermedia.co.in