The Business Value of Security Platforms for Digital Transformation

Cybersecurity is a robust market that continues to expand at a relentless pace. Much of this growth is the result of digital innovations that are transforming the networks that cybersecurity solutions protect. The traditional perimeter, whether at the edge of the network or the edge of the data center, is expanding exponentially with every new edge and edge device being added to the network.

That perimeter isn’t only getting larger. It’s also highly flexible, permitting more connections, applications, transactions and workflows to pass through than ever before. And in many cases, it’s in a state of flux. Things like virtualized networks and hyperscale data centers need to constantly adapt to dynamic business requirements.

Point Products Demise

In today’s world of digital transformation, point products are a dead end. Companies still sell the majority of security tools as one-off solutions to plug a hole somewhere in a network. (Usually it’s a traditional next-generation firewall (NGFW). They’re not part of a strategy, and they certainly don’t contribute to improving visibility and control within today’s expanding networks.

That’s not a model that’s going to survive the current radical digital transformation of the network. You could argue this selling model has made organizations less safe due to product and vendor sprawl. The inability of security teams to collect and correlate threat intelligence to establish visibility and control is another reason why. Expanding this reckless approach to the multicloud, private clouds and virtual network functions (VNFs), remote branch offices, mobile workers and IoT devices is a recipe for disaster. That’s especially so when it’s coupled with the growing cybersecurity skills gap.

Redefining the Security Platform

Security vendors have long extolled the virtues of selling integrated security platforms. They aim to address the bigger security challenge, rather than selling point products. But a lot of that messaging has been marketing hype. In reality, most security “platforms” have simply been a collection of loosely related tools wrapped in a sheet-metal or virtual box, and managed through a software shell that creates the illusion of interoperability. And security resellers know this.

Part of the challenge is that there haven’t been standards to clearly define what a security platform should deliver. It’s time to change that.

The reality is that selling a platform can provide all of the advantages that have been hyped by marketing teams. That functionality should include:

But form factor isn’t enough. These platforms also need to be able to connect to maintain consistent enforcement for data and workflows that move across and between all of these networked environments. That requires the ability to translate protocols and policies on the fly between platforms, and also interact directly with the network to do things like enforce access controls and establish dynamic segmentation based on business requirements to maintain the protection data and resources once they’ve passed through perimeter controls.

Integration also needs to extend to third-party solutions. A true platform must use common standards and provide open APIs so third parties can collect and share information with the platform, build tools designed to function as part of the platform or create hooks for true interoperability between platforms from different vendors. The goal is to be able to create a consistent, unified security fabric that increases visibility and control.

Transformational Platform

A true security platform can transform your security business. Security resellers can reposition themselves as trusted advisers for the digital transformation by finding and selling true security platforms, rather than a series of one-off security devices. When you sell that point-product firewall, you have to go out and find the next opportunity. But when you sell a platform and demonstrate its potential, you become part of the team that designs security for the rollout of a company’s digital transformation strategy. That means not only selling more devices, but helping to train users and implementing these devices in new environments. It could be protecting a massive hyperscale data center or adding security to a DevOps container to secure the development of a critical business application.

True platforms are powerful tools that generate revenue, build trust and create residual income during the digital transformation. And they should replace point security products as the primary solution in your reseller toolkit.

Jon Bove is the vice president of channel sales at Fortinet. He and his team are responsible for strategizing, promoting and driving the channel sales strategy for partners in the U.S.  A 17-year veteran of the technology industry, Bove has held progressively responsible sales, sales leadership and channel leadership positions. Follow @Fortinet on Twitter or Bove on LinkedIn.