Open standards to lock down security

To support agile, effective security in a rapidly-changing environment, data centres and networks need to be built on open standards, says Juniper Networks distributor SecureData.

"Speed, agility, scale and security are among the most important considerations in today's networks," says Carlo Venter, CEO of Tarsus SecureData. "But to cope with a changing environment, including the data explosion, mobility, moves to harness cloud, and rapidly evolving security threats, data centres and networks can't be immovable. They need to be agile, available, scalable and secure in a world moving to software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). Enterprise systems need to integrate rapidly with new solutions as needed when they come to market. They must be open to adopt innovations that can't even be predicted yet. This means they can't be locked in to a proprietary environment."

Venter says market leaders such as Juniper Networks believe that in a future cloud/SDN world, enterprises must be positioned to leverage best-of-breed solutions from any vendor. They must be positioned to take advantage of any new innovations that come to market. "As enterprises move to cloud, physical and virtual security may co-exist, and if they do not integrate and inter-operate well, bottlenecks may happen, responses may be slowed, and productivity and customers services impacted." Security is moving up the stack, says Venter, with associated demands on its ability to secure large volume data transfers and high volume computing applications.

"Security is more important than ever, but it cannot slow down the network. It must be fully integrated. Open standards enable this seamless integration."