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January 26, 2024
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Top 5 Microsegmentation Solutions for Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Data Centers
If you have landed on this blog post, you must be looking for a good microsegmentation solution for your organization. Microsegmentations are logically created granular zones for applications, services, users or user groups, or anything that represents small functional workloads. Practically, it is possible to create such microsegments using host-based firewalls and endpoint solutions. However, you may need to deal with many challenges when creating granular zones and implementing security or access policies for each host, application, service, or user without microsegmentation solutions. You will have to start creating customized security policies for every host, application, service, or user and implement them on host-based firewalls and endpoint solutions. It doesn’t sounds like a troublesome and laborious task?
Microsegmentation tools solve this problem in a very structured, organized, and easy way. That’s why we are here to help you find a good microsegmentation solution for your organization. Today, every cloud platform like AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure has come up with cloud solutions that allow you to create more granular workloads on their cloud platform. Their tools are platform-centric and cannot be used in on-premises data centers. This gives rise to a new challenge.
Since organizations work in heterogeneous environments, we need a one-stop solution that works across hybrid and multi-cloud platforms. Let’s explore some of the microsegmentation solutions for hybrid and multi-cloud data centers proven in the market.
Microsegmentation Solutions for Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Data Centers
Before we start listing microsegmentation solutions for hybrid and multi-cloud data centers, we want to clarify that this list is not created based on any ranking or as a product review.
Disclaimer: The sequence in which the tools are presented does not imply any ranking or endorsement. The position of a tool, whether first or last, does not reflect its quality or effectiveness. This post is not a review of these products, but a compilation based on professional experiences, aiming to showcase options available.
We do not guarantee the functionality or reliability of these products as they are subject to continuous updates over time. It is incumbent upon the user to thoroughly research and evaluate before choosing any tool. We disclaim liability for any damages/losses from using the tools here.
– Author
With that said, let’s start the list of microsegmentation solutions supporting on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments.
Guardicore
Guardicore is a notable solution in the microsegmentation landscape, offering a robust platform for organizations looking to enhance their security posture. As businesses navigate the complexities of network security, having a reliable microsegmentation tool is pivotal. Guardicore provides a viable solution for those keen on attaining a high level of security in their network environments.
Creators:
Product Overview
Guardicore is centered around its Centra Security Platform, which provides a comprehensive solution for visualizing, segmenting, and securing applications across various environments. The platform offers a detailed view of application dependencies and flows across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid infrastructures.
Unlike traditional segmentation solutions that rely heavily on firewalls, Guardicore employs a more nuanced approach. It delivers micro-segmentation that enables granular control over communications between different parts of the network. The emphasis is on reducing the attack surface by limiting unnecessary communications while ensuring seamless operation of the necessary ones.
Guardicore’s Centra Security Platform facilitates easy creation and enforcement of security policies, helping organizations comply with industry regulations and standards. Additionally, the platform provides real-time breach detection and response capabilities, a crucial feature in today’s dynamic threat landscape.
With Guardicore, organizations can transition from a monolithic security model to a more modern, micro-segmented model, thus achieving a higher level of security and control.
Key Features
Granular Visibility: Obtain a detailed understanding of application interactions and network flows.
Micro-Segmentation: Enforce tight control over network communications, reducing the attack surface.
Real-Time Breach Detection and Response: Detect and respond to threats in real time, mitigating potential damage.
Flexible Deployment: Seamlessly deploy Guardicore in cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments.
Intuitive Policy Engine: Easily create and enforce security policies, aiding in compliance with industry standards.
Guardicore’s approach to microsegmentation provides a balanced mix of control, visibility, and ease of use, making it a viable option for organizations seeking to enhance their network security in a manageable and effective manner.
Illumio
Illumio is a prominent player in the domain of microsegmentation, providing solutions that cater to the evolving security needs of modern organizations. The essence of microsegmentation is to reduce the attack surface within the network by controlling interactions among different entities within the infrastructure. Illumio’s approach towards achieving this is both sophisticated and intuitive.
Creators:
Product Overview
At the heart of Illumio’s offering is its Adaptive Security Platform (ASP), which is engineered to provide real-time visibility into the traffic flowing across various workloads, applications, and environments. The platform’s micro-segmentation capabilities enable the creation of security policies that are adaptive and dynamic, providing robust protection against potential internal and external threats.
Illumio ASP is not tethered to any specific infrastructure and operates seamlessly across data centers, public and private clouds, and hybrid environments. This provides a level of flexibility that is crucial for organizations operating in diverse and complex network environments. The platform’s architecture is designed to scale effortlessly, making it a suitable choice for both small enterprises and large organizations.
One of the distinguishing features of Illumio is its policy model, which is intuitive and straightforward. This simplifies the process of policy creation and enforcement, reducing the complexity that is often associated with micro-segmentation solutions.
Key Features
Real-Time Visibility: Obtain a clear view of the interactions happening across your network in real time.
Adaptive Micro-Segmentation: Create dynamic security policies that adapt to the changing landscape of your network.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Operate seamlessly across various environments, including on-premises data centers and cloud platforms.
Scalable Architecture: Accommodate growing organizational needs with a platform that scales effortlessly.
Intuitive Policy Model: Simplify policy management with an intuitive and user-friendly model.
Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform is a noteworthy solution for organizations aiming to enhance their network security through micro-segmentation. Its ability to provide real-time visibility coupled with an intuitive policy model makes it a reliable choice for achieving robust security in complex network environments.
Cisco Secure Workload
Cisco Secure Workload, formerly known as Tetration, stands as a substantial offering in the microsegmentation realm, emanating from a brand synonymous with network security. As enterprises navigate the intricacies of securing their infrastructures, having a robust microsegmentation solution is pivotal. Cisco Secure Workload aims to provide this solution with a blend of comprehensive visibility, consistent policy enforcement, and advanced security features.
Creators:
Product Overview
Cisco Secure Workload is engineered to offer thorough visibility and control across all workloads, applications, and networks regardless of where they are hosted. At its core, the platform seeks to minimize the attack surface and ensure compliance by enforcing a zero-trust model across the infrastructure.
One of the notable aspects of Cisco Secure Workload is its ability to automate policy recommendations and enforcement, reducing the manual workload and minimizing the scope of errors. This is critical in ensuring that security policies are not just robust but also consistently applied across the network.
The platform’s analytics-driven approach enables organizations to gain insights into the behavior of their workloads and applications, fostering a proactive security posture. Furthermore, the real-time behavior analysis and forensics capabilities provide an added layer of security by enabling timely detection and response to threats.
Key Features
Comprehensive Visibility: Gain an overarching view of all interactions within your network, across all workloads and environments.
Automated Policy Recommendations and Enforcement: Simplify policy management and ensure consistent enforcement with automated recommendations.
Analytics-Driven Insights: Leverage analytics to understand workload behavior and enhance your security posture.
Real-Time Behavior Analysis and Forensics: Detect and respond to threats in real-time, bolstering your security infrastructure.
Zero-Trust Enforcement: Implement a zero-trust model across your infrastructure, minimizing the attack surface.
Cisco Secure Workload, with its focus on automating policy management and providing analytics-driven insights, stands as a viable option for organizations looking to enhance their security posture through microsegmentation. Through a combination of comprehensive visibility and automated policy enforcement, it provides a solid foundation for achieving a robust and proactive security stance.
Hillstone CloudHive
Hillstone CloudHive is a distinct microsegmentation solution, engineered to address the modern-day challenges associated with securing complex network environments. As organizations steer through the demanding realm of network security, having a solution that is both robust and intuitive is indispensable. Hillstone CloudHive seeks to fulfill this requirement by offering a suite of features designed to enhance security posture and operational efficiency.
Creators:
Product Overview
Hillstone CloudHive provides a microsegmentation solution that segments each virtual machine (VM) into a micro-segmented domain, essentially creating a security perimeter around individual workloads. This is crucial for reducing the attack surface and limiting lateral movement of threats within the network.
One of the compelling features of Hillstone CloudHive is its ability to provide visibility and control over east-west traffic within the cloud environment. It employs a zero-trust model, ensuring that every communication is verified before being allowed. This is pivotal in preventing unauthorized access and ensuring a high level of security within the network.
Moreover, Hillstone CloudHive provides a unified security management platform, facilitating the monitoring and management of security policies across the network. This centralized approach not only simplifies management but also ensures consistency in policy enforcement, which is crucial for maintaining a strong security posture.
Key Features
Micro-Segmentation of Workloads: Segment each VM into a secure domain, reducing the attack surface and enhancing security.
Visibility and Control Over East-West Traffic: Gain insight and maintain control over lateral communications within your network.
Zero-Trust Security Model: Implement a zero-trust model to ensure robust security and prevent unauthorized access.
Unified Security Management: Centralize the management of security policies, ensuring consistency and ease of management.
Intuitive User Interface: Navigate through the platform with ease, thanks to its user-friendly interface.
Hillstone CloudHive, with its focus on micro-segmentation and zero-trust security, offers a robust solution for organizations aiming to enhance their network security. Its ability to provide a high level of visibility and control makes it a reliable choice for tackling the security challenges associated with modern network environments.
Nutanix Flow Network Security
Nutanix Flow Network Security emerges as a robust solution in the microsegmentation space, aligning with the modern-day security imperatives of organizations. As network environments grow in complexity, having a sophisticated yet user-friendly microsegmentation solution becomes crucial. Nutanix Flow Network Security is designed to meet this need, offering a range of features to bolster network security and operational efficiency.
Creators:
Product Overview
Nutanix Flow offers microsegmentation in a way that’s easy to manage and operate, without requiring additional hardware or software installations. The core philosophy behind Nutanix Flow is to provide simplified network and security management across different environments, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
One of the notable aspects of Nutanix Flow is its application-centric approach to microsegmentation. This allows for the creation and enforcement of policies based on the application, as opposed to traditional methods based on network attributes. This shift in focus enables more intuitive policy management and ensures that security measures align well with operational needs.
Moreover, Nutanix Flow provides real-time visualization of network communications, which is crucial for understanding the network’s behavior and identifying potential security risks. The ability to visualize network interactions in real-time also aids in troubleshooting and enhances the overall manageability of the network.
Key Features
Application-Centric Microsegmentation: Create and enforce policies based on applications, simplifying the management and improving the effectiveness of security measures.
Real-Time Network Visualization: Gain a real-time view of network communications, aiding in troubleshooting and security analysis.
No Additional Hardware Requirement: Deploy microsegmentation without the need for additional hardware, ensuring a cost-effective solution.
Centralized Management: Manage network and security policies from a centralized platform, ensuring consistency and ease of management.
Integration with Existing Infrastructure: Seamlessly integrate with existing network infrastructure, ensuring a smooth transition to a microsegmented environment.
Nutanix Flow Network Security, with its application-centric approach and real-time network visualization, provides a solid platform for organizations aiming to enhance their network security through microsegmentation. Its ability to integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure and provide a centralized management platform makes it a reliable and convenient choice for modern network environments.
Zero Network Microsegmentation
Zero Network Microsegmentation emerges as a notable contender in the domain of network security, particularly in the microsegmentation sector. As the digital landscape evolves, so does the sophistication of cyber threats, making the necessity for robust microsegmentation solutions more apparent. Zero Network aims to address these security challenges by offering a comprehensive microsegmentation solution to safeguard organizational networks.
Creators:
Product Overview
Zero Network Microsegmentation focuses on reducing the attack surface within networks by enforcing strict access controls and segmenting the network into secure zones. This approach minimizes the potential for unauthorized access and lateral movement of threats within the network, which is crucial for maintaining a strong security posture.
One of the significant features of Zero Network is its ability to provide continuous security monitoring and enforcement without requiring extensive configuration or management overhead. This is achieved through its zero-touch functionality, which automates the process of securing the network, making it a viable solution for organizations with limited IT resources.
Moreover, Zero Network offers a user-centric approach to microsegmentation. It analyses the behavior of users and devices within the network to create dynamic access policies. This behavior-based approach enhances the effectiveness of the microsegmentation strategy by adapting to the changing network environment and user behavior.
Key Features
Zero-Touch Microsegmentation: Automate the process of network segmentation and security enforcement with minimal management overhead.
User-Centric Approach: Analyze user and device behavior to create dynamic access policies, enhancing the effectiveness of microsegmentation.
Continuous Security Monitoring: Maintain a vigilant security posture with continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection.
Behavior-Based Access Controls: Adapt to the changing network environment and user behavior with dynamic access controls.
Seamless Integration: Integrate smoothly with existing network infrastructure, ensuring a hassle-free deployment and operation.
Zero Network Microsegmentation, with its focus on automation and user-centric approach, offers a reliable solution for organizations looking to bolster their network security. The zero-touch functionality coupled with behavior-based access controls makes it a compelling choice for modern enterprises aiming to mitigate the risks associated with today’s evolving cyber threat landscape.
Bottom Line
In summary, microsegmentation is critical for securing modern hybrid, multi-cloud environments against sophisticated threats exploiting lateral movement. The tools discussed above provide viable options to gain visibility, implement segmentation, and automate policy enforcement across heterogenous environments in a consistent manner.
Most of the cloud platforms allows to create granular workloads on their platforms. Since, the whole network and infrastructure doesn’t build on a single cloud platform. So, it is necessary to have one solution that works on every, physical, virtual, cloud, and hybrid platforms.
Evaluate your needs, environment, and use cases to shortlist tools fitting your requirements. Most vendors offer free trials, POCs, or demo instances to help assess effectiveness. Pilot with a small scope before expanding coverage. Partner with vendors providing flexibility, automation, and centralized visibility/control across your entire hybrid infrastructure.
We hope this guide helped exploring the microsegmentation solutions that is compatible with on hybrid and multi-cloud data centers. Thanks for reading this post. Please share this post and help secure the digital world. Visit our website, thesecmaster.com, and our social media page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Telegram, Tumblr, Medium, and Instagram and subscribe to receive updates like this.
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Arun KL
Arun KL is a cybersecurity professional with 15+ years of experience in IT infrastructure, cloud security, vulnerability management, Penetration Testing, security operations, and incident response. He is adept at designing and implementing robust security solutions to safeguard systems and data. Arun holds multiple industry certifications including CCNA, CCNA Security, RHCE, CEH, and AWS Security.
