In a recent interview, Ariana Lynn, Principal Analyst at The Fast Mode spoke to Tim Erlin, Head of Product at Wallarm on the impact of traffic visibility on modern IP networks. Tim joins us in a series of discussions with leading networking, analytics and cybersecurity companies, assessing the need for traffic filtering technologies that can deliver real-time, granular application awareness. The series explores how advanced analytics power various network functions amidst the rapid growth in traffic and applications.
Ariana: How do your solutions and products fulfill the demands of today's networks?
Tim: Wallarm focuses on API security and protection. Our focus allows us to provide deep inspection and analysis of API protocols beyond what standard DPI provides. By its very nature, DPI must be broadly applicable, but it's not able to provide the analysis and detection capabilities that a dedicated API security tool like Wallarm can.
Ariana: How important is traffic visibility for your suite of solutions and products?
Tim: Traffic visibility is core to Wallarm's functionality. Much of the value that Wallarm provides comes from analysis of API and application traffic.
Ariana: What technologies are most effective in delivering real-time traffic visibility?
Tim: The most effective tools for capturing traffic are the ones that can be deployed in your environment. At Wallarm, we chose to build our own traffic capture tools in addition to integrating with third-party tools that organizations are already using. If a customer is already using an API gateway, for example, we want to plug into that infrastructure. The same with Kubernetes, or AWS. We're not going to be successfully deployed if we require customers to re-architect their applications to accommodate us.
Ariana: What challenges do you often face in using existing traffic visibility tools?
Tim: Off the shelf tools simply don't provide the depth of visibility into application traffic necessary for us to effectively deliver protection. For real-time analysis and response, capture and analysis need to be on the same logical level.
Ariana: What are your views on open-source software for delivering visibility?
Tim: Open-source tools are a vital part of the visibility story. We believe in the role of open-source, both as a component in our overall solution, and as independent projects like API Firewall and GoTestWaf, which Wallarm maintains.
Ariana: How effective is deep packet inspection (DPI) technology in addressing today's traffic complexities?
Tim: Deep packet inspection is powerful for network monitoring and performance, but DPI tools can't go deep enough on every protocol and application to deliver complete visibility.
Ariana: What is your view on commercial DPI vs open-source DPI?
Tim: The choice between open-source and commercial often comes down to how you want to spend your money. If you have the people and the expertise, open-source solutions can offer great flexibility at a lower cost, but they're not for everyone. If you want someone to call for support, or you want SLAs for updates, a commercial tool is a better choice.
Tim Erlin is the Head of Product at Wallarm. He began his career in information technology with customer service and technical support, then branched into cybersecurity early on as a sales engineer. That solid foundation in serving customers and understanding market problems drove him into product management and strategy, where he has spent most of his more than twenty years in the industry. Erlin is passionate about the cybersecurity industry and motivated by helping organizations operate securely. He contributes to the security community by authoring blog content, offering subject matter expertise, and through podcast interviews and speaking engagements. Erlin is also the host of the Conversations in Cybersecurity podcast.
This interview is a part of The Fast Mode's Traffic Visibility segment, featuring leading networking, analytics and cybersecurity companies and their views on the importance of network intelligence and DPI for today's IP networks. A research report on this topic will be published in June 2024 - for more information, visit here.
