The Fast Mode spoke to John Knopf, SVP of Product Management at Absolute Software on the impact of traffic visibility on ZTNA networks. John joins us in a series of discussions with leading cybersecurity and networking vendors, assessing the evolution of ZTNA technologies, the roadmap for ZTNA deployments, the benefits of ZTNA for enterprise and telco networks, and the need for real-time traffic visibility technologies such as DPI for ZTNA.
Ariana: What challenges do you see across ZTNA deployments?
John: There seems to be a pervasive mindset to ZTNA adoption that is destructive to making steady, material improvements. In many organizations, an all-or-nothing mindset creates paralysis that prevents the ZTNA journey from starting. After all, even with a fully realized, mature ZTNA deployment, there will assuredly be vulnerabilities and threats in the solution infrastructure needing patches, updates, and fresh solutions.
The most prevalent impediment to ZTNA is the gargantuan task of updating the physical networking infrastructure. The planning, time, effort, and cost to replace all the routers, switches, and firewalls is enough to deter even the hardy, and few corporate IT budgets can accommodate such an undertaking.
Organizations should adopt a lets-get-going mindset by implementing drop-in solutions capable of making material ZTNA progress without a complete go-back-to-ground-zero overhaul. By adopting a mindset that your network and solution stack will always be evolving, organizations can make material progress now, with SDN solutions that offer Zero Trust benefits.
Ariana: Why is cloud a key component of ZTNA?
John: By adopting a cloud infrastructure and solutions, organizations get to piggyback on the considerable learning and budgets of large cloud providers, while benefiting from the pay-per-usage model, instead of having to make large capital outlays for infrastructure.
All large cloud providers have considerable experience, investment, and motivation to adopt Zero Trust approaches from which all subscribers immediately benefit. Of necessity, they are naturally motivated to be continually on the leading edge.
At the same time, cloud adoption, especially from multiple cloud vendors, makes an organization more resilient and capable of implementing and switching to best-of-breed solutions that meet their needs at the time, while avoiding (mostly) the depreciation and lock-in mindset that occurs with large investments.
Cloud allows you to get what you need or what “fits” while also providing the flexibility to switch in the future, as your organization grows and the threat landscape evolves.
John Knopf is SVP of Product Management at Absolute Software.
This interview is a part of The Fast Mode's Next-Gen DPI Traffic Visibility for ZTNA segment, featuring over 40 leading cybersecurity and networking solution providers and their views on the importance of traffic visibility for ZTNA. A research report on this topic will be published in January 2024 - for more information, visit here.
