The infrastructure and techniques used to deliver applications are undergoing a significant transformation, which is making it more challenging than ever for IT and cybersecurity teams to maintain both point-in-time and historical awareness of all application activity. Achieving the best possible security protection, compliance posture, and application performance levels is only possible through an application discovery process that spans all of an organization’s environments and application delivery technologies.
An effective application discovery process includes four essential elements.
1- The first element is data collection. A variety of agent- and network-based techniques can be used to collect detailed information about application activity across both on-premises and cloud environments. Both provide significant value, but agent-based collection is particularly critical, as it enables the collection of richer Layer 7 detail.
2- Raw data on its own is of limited value without context, so the second key element of application discovery is organization and labeling. Solutions like Akamai Guardicore Segmentation streamline this process by interfacing with existing data sources and employing other methods of automation.
3- The third step to effective application discovery is visualization. Visualization brings the contextualized data together into an adaptable, visual interface that is relevant to the security team and other application stakeholders. Real-time and historical views of application activity each serve distinct purposes, so it’s important to implement a visualization approach that can support both types of data.
4- The fourth and final critical element of an application discovery approach is a clear and intuitive method of taking action based on the insights gained through greater application visibility. This is the strategic point of intersection between application discovery and microsegmentation.