The Power of Convergence Mcafee

n cybersecurity, integration has www.mcafee/activate become a near-obligatory requirement for organisations considering new products. They want to know new www.mcafee.com/activate download products will complement existing investments to www.mcafee.com/activate product key collectively mcafee.com/activate product keyproduce www.mcafee.com/activate more effective and efficient solutions.

But as of late, the term www.mcafee.com/activate product key convergence has emerged as another key capability and www.mcafee.com/activate download expectation of technology platforms www.mcafee/activate.

I’d like to explore how these terms www.mcafee.com/activate differ and how those differences mcafee.com/activate product key will shape security outcomes in the future www.mcafee.com/activate product key.

Definitions

Let’s start with a www.mcafee.com/activate stone-cold definition. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

• Integrate means “to end the www.mcafee.com/activate segregation of and bring into equal membership in society or an organisation mcafee.com/activate product key” www.mcafee.com/activate download
• Converge means “to come together and www.mcafee/activate unite in a common interest or focus www.mcafee.com/activate product key”

Are we splitting hairs here? Are they much of a muchness?

These days, integration typically refers to the establishment of a common communication channel or route between www.mcafee.com/activate disparate solutions to solve a particular mcafee.com/activate product key challenge www.mcafee/activate – www.mcafee.com/activate product key usually to enable data sharing of some sort. www.mcafee.com/activate download Standard examples we hear sound like, “we’ve integrated this tool with that platform via API/Syslog/PowerShell” or various other methods.

Convergence approaches things differently by consolidating features and capabilities onto a common scalable architecture and platform. To take a common example from daily life www.mcafee.com/activate downloadmcafee.com/activate product key(nowadays, anyway) www.mcafee.com/activate, converged networks such as Cisco WebEx, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams to name just a few, amalgamate voice, video,  www.mcafee/activate and data services within a unified infrastructure.

Convergence aims to deliver the following benefits:

• Lower costs and complexity

* Consolidating vendors and www.mcafee.com/activate technology stacks should reduce licensing and operational costs, as well as management overhead www.mcafee.com/activate product key

• Enabling new digital business www.mcafee.com/activate download scenarios mcafee.com/activate product key

* Apps, services, APIs, and data shareable to partners and contractors with lower risk exposure.

• Ease of use/transparency www.mcafee.com/activate product key

* Avoiding app bloat, fewer www.mcafee.com/activate agents per device,  www.mcafee/activate consistency of experience mcafee.com/activate product key regardless of user location or device

• Centralisation

* Cloud-based centralised management with www.mcafee.com/activate distributed policy enforcement and decision making www.mcafee.com/activate product key

While these benefits may not come as a surprise to some, many could argue that integration could very well yield the same outcomes www.mcafee.com/activate and thus www.mcafee.com/activate download, the differences are www.mcafee/activate negligible. www.mcafee.com/activate product key Let’s take a mcafee.com/activate product key moment to walk through a real-world example to show the contrast between the two.

Challenges and Benefits

It may be helpful to elaborate with examples to highlight just www.mcafee/activate some challenges typically faced with integrations.

Let’s consider an organisation that wants to improve its security attentiveness and overall posture by blocking access to websites and Cloud services based www.mcafee.com/activate download on business risk, not just standard reputational checks. In this given www.mcafee.com/activate scenario mcafee.com/activate product key www.mcafee.com/activate product key www.mcafee/activate, let’s assume the organisation has mandated that its lines of business must ensure Cloud services being used must store their data encrypted when at rest.

In order to achieve this mcafee.com/activate product keyfrom a workflow perspective, they would need to integrate the business risk attributes for a given www.mcafee.com/activate website (such as whether or not data at rest is encrypted) from a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution, along with the content www.mcafee.com/activate download filtering and blocking capabilities from a Secure Web Gateway (SWG) solution. Usually, this would be done www.mcafee.com/activate product key via custom API integration; assuming www.mcafee/activate that no further re-architecture work or implementation of data sharing platforms is needed.

• The API is changed during an upgrade?
• The SWG appliance requires a patch or version upgrade?
• The personnel  www.mcafee.com/activate download who wrote or implemented the www.mcafee/activate integration leave the organisation?
• Credentials and/or certificates www.mcafee.com/activate used to authenticate between the solutions need to be refreshed?
• The connection between www.mcafee.com/activate product key the solutions breaks down, is the customer ultimately responsible for mcafee.com/activate product key restitching the products together? Or are the respective vendors then called into action?

Now, let’s reflect on the benefits we mentioned earlier www.mcafee.com/activate. Complexity goes out the window the moment we begin to mention bespoke integration via coding and credential/certificate management. www.mcafee.com/activate download Version control for the code, along with www.mcafee.com/activate product keythe www.mcafee/activate dependence on version specific APIs, draw out more complexity as change management for each iteration of the configuration needs to be tested. In addition, we need mcafee.com/activate product key to consider the additional complexity www.mcafee.com/activate download brought by the need to open up firewall ports www.mcafee.com/activate product key between the various components involved to make this integration work www.mcafee.com/activate.

Centralised management and enforcement don’t exist as the two solutions and their ontologies don’t align. That is, a risk www.mcafee.com/activate download attribute for a Cloud service in the CASB product cannot be natively stored in the SWG as its ontology lacks this www.mcafee/activate concept. This means that they must resort mcafee.com/activate product key to a common lower value ontology which is common across the two – in this case, the URL. The resultant www.mcafee.com/activate integration means a dumbed-down list of URLs must be used. This list would be routinely and regularly pushed from the CASB to a list within the SWG. At that point, its accuracy and timeliness become highly dependent on the synchronisation and polling period between www.mcafee.com/activate download the two products.

With this, ease of use diminishes as attrition in personnel brings about lost institutional knowledge and know-how unless knowledge www.mcafee.com/activate download is transferred www.mcafee/activate or sufficiently documented. Also mcafee.com/activate product key, in the event of an www.mcafee.com/activate incorrect block on a website, troubleshooting would become troublesome.