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User security consolidation a continuing trend
Shifting to a platform approach is about more than saving money, according to some of the findings from Tanium and IDC
The security channel has been expecting customers to consolidate the number of tools they use for some time, particularly in light of the economic pressures on budgets.
But the drivers towards platforms and products suites is not just financial, with research from IDC and Tanium highlighting the slow response most customers face trying to respond to threats because of a siloed approach.
Anecdotal evidence suggests most enterprises have tens of different tools from numerous vendors that are being used to protect data and networks. That has been the situation for a long time, but there is a sense that things are changing, and that is shown in the findings from IDC.
The analyst delivered research that revealed close to 90% of IT decision-makers plan to move from point solutions to converged platforms by 2024.
As well as looking to make life potentially cheaper, there is also a desire to improve efficiency, with three-quarters of those quizzed revealing their organisations have separate teams to manage and secure endpoints. The resulting siloed working practices have negatively impacted productivity and led to increased software licensing fees.
“The need for converged endpoint management has grown rapidly to support the continued adoption of digital transformation initiatives and the prevalence of work-from-anywhere policies,” said Tanium CMO Steve Daheb.
“When you find that more than 50% of respondents in a survey like this use multiple endpoint management and security tools across many different teams, it’s easy to understand their desire to reduce the complexity and cost across their many environments while simultaneously reducing their risk from data breaches,” he added.
Gaining ground
Tanium has been working with its channel to increase the business in the mid-market, gaining ground with its platform approach.
Speaking to MicroScope last summer, Michael Martins, vice-president of technical partnerships and alliances at Tanium, said the channel as well as customers was looking for options to drive consolidation.
“We’ve seen increased demand in the partner community for a programme that brings together isolated point solutions via a single source of truth,” he said.
Tanium is not alone in talking up the platform approach, and elsewhere in the market, Cisco has been doing the same, with the latest enhancements to its extended detection and response (XDR) solution.
The firm has added recovery to its response process to help users more effectively counter ransomware attacks, with the view that using an XDR platform is one of the most effective ways of adopting the solution.
“The exponential growth of ransomware and cyber extortion has made a platform approach crucial to effectively counter adversaries,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice-president and general manager of security and collaboration at Cisco.
“Our objective is to build a resilient and open cyber security platform that can withstand ransomware assaults and recover with minimal impact, ensuring uninterrupted business operations.”
