IXIA has just released its 2018 security report.  In our increasingly digital and connected world, security is an ever-present challenge. Human ingenuity and creativity drive both the solutions we develop and the threats we face. For that reason, we must continue to push forward and implement solutions that are continuous and resilient, stress detection and response, and seek to shrink our attack surface and risk profile.  The analysis covers

• The shifting focus to cloud operations from cloud migration
• Strategies for ensuring security and compliance in the cloud
• How clouds are forcing changes in security best practices
• The evolving threat and risk resulting from cyber-crime
• How encryption is benefiting businesses, and also hackers

We analyze the impact of these trends on an organization's security architecture and policies. Download the 2018 Ixia Security Report to learn more.

Security is top of mind today, not only for network architects and IT staff but also in the boardroom. How do you translate these goals into a realistic and achievable security architecture? Using inline security solutions is one way. The solution is more than just adding an inline security appliance, such as an intrusion protection system (IPS) or a web application firewall (WAF). It requires complete data visibility, which allows the examination of all data for suspect network traffic.

The key to successful inline security monitoring is to enable traffic inspection and detection without impacting network and application availability. If one of your security tools becomes congested or fails, you need to keep traffic moving, continue monitoring, and prevent a network or application outage. Some organizations deploy their inline security appliances behind the firewall in a serial configuration. With this design, if an appliance becomes congested or fails, traffic stops. Redundant network paths can help avoid this, but they require twice the number of tools. Ensuring both paths can handle the full volume of traffic is expensive and leaves tools on the inactive path underutilized during normal operations.

To address these issues, many organizations are deploying an underlying security architecture that can ensure failsafe operation of key security appliances and solutions, and also help these solutions operate more efficiently. This paper describes key functions of a high-performing security architecture —one that protects network availability and ensures continued inspection of everything crossing your network.