Security: Lock That Information!

In today's dynamically changing business scenario with rapid

growth and competition, enterprises need faster adaptability and response to

market situations. This is pushing enterprises for high availability of both

intra and inter-organizational information to enable better and faster

decision-making. Enterprises are also opening up and integrating with a larger

ecosystem of partner in the supply chain and networking with both their

downstream and upstream partners in the ecosystem, so as to streamline and

optimize their value chain.

Security Transition



This transition from a bounded environment prior to supply chain
integration, to the unbounded environment resulting from connectivity has thrown

a number of security issues for the enterprises. The working environment has

also changed considerably with employees mobility increasing. Anticipated

uncontrolled deployment of PDAs, smart phones and other futuristic devices

coupled with higher mobility of employees having connectivity on the move will

lead to security issues that need to be tackled head on.

If we look at the security evolution in the above scenario,

security was never viewed from an enterprise-wide business approach and had

traditionally always taken a discrete isolated approach. The reasons for this

were simple; organizations wanted to protect their assets, so perimeter security

was deployed. Security was not linked to business processes tightly and

organizations were not much worried about information security as the adoption

of networking and mobility was limited.

Higher mobility and faster decision-making require information

to be made available anytime, anywhere. This, in turn would enable enterprises

to respond to changing market needs in a shorter time-span. The scenario is

changing fast and organizations are now integrating business processes, while

service delivery architecture is evolving. Now we need to have higher

collaboration and sharing information intra and inter organizations, as whole

ecosystem is important. We will see that the reliance on third party is

increasing as we are seeing convergence in services and each component playing a

critical role.

Security will move from perimeter security to next level with

the need for higher availability coupled with compliance to regulations putting

Identity & Access Management (IAM) solutions in the mainstream. So...

Driving a Boom



Enterprises will need to design a centralized security policy, which takes
into consideration the needs of employees and partners alike. This trend will

increasingly set the boundaries that govern security management and

administration policies in enterprises. IAM solutions will also help enterprises

realize the dual benefits of simplified compliance management and centralized

security management for a diverse set of applications.

According to IDC, in 2005 the overall security software market

in India stood at $66.6 mn, while the security appliances market was estimated

to be $31.5 mn. The leading players in the security software market were Cisco,

Trend Micro, Symantec, Check Point, McAfee, RSA, CA, ISS, Fortinet and Juniper

etc.

While many security appliances were launched in the 2005/2006

timeframe, these have been deployed mostly by small and medium business (SMB)

enterprises. UTM (Unified Threat Management) appliances will provide greater

flexibility to enterprise as they are deploying UTM in branches within the

larger perimeter defense. Large enterprises would continue to invest in

best-of-breed software products when it comes to larger perimeter exposed to

external world, where criticality is high. Dedicated appliances are also making

inroads into the large enterprise space. SMBs find security appliances a good

option as they get good functionality and easier manageability at a relatively

lower cost.

Managed security services are on the rise and enterprises are

looking towards outsourcing security management to third party service

providers. Market adoption of security solutions in 2005/2006 was concentrated

mainly amongst large and mid-size enterprises in the country. Typically, the

inherent nature of these enterprises drove the demand for these types of

security solutions. Their vast scale of operations, higher requirement for data

protection in the light of increasing security awareness, protection

requirements of bigger networks, and connectivity were some of the critical

factors that propelled this market.

Vendors in the security software market were seen to be

targeting verticals such as BFSI, telecommunications, government and the

services sector during 2005/2006. Enterprises in these verticals have huge

repositories of critical data and therefore their security solutions

requirements come with the increased complexity of geographical spread. Not to

mention that manufacturing sector has also started investing in enterprise-wide

security solutions in 2006.

Praveen Sengar



maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in



The author is assistant manager, Software & Services Research, IDC India