The only cure is to get out of the glass house you've built for yourself. This is critically important to guiding our organizations.
So this past week I left my glass house to meet with several readers and vendor start-ups whose efforts bear some attention. One was Consentry Networks, which is developing a NAC-like architecture that not only evaluates nodes before they are admitted to networks, but continues to monitor and evaluate them as long as they're on the network. The company hasn't yet fully implemented its ultimate vision, but even in its current stage, the technology looks compelling--and who wouldn't admire the chutzpa of a start-up that sets its sights directly on Cisco's sweet spot.
The other is Blue Lane Technologies, which calls its technology patch emulation. Blue Lane gets security patches from Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and other vendors, figures out what they do, then emulates that function on an appliance that sits in front of the server farm. The emulated patch addresses the security risk at hand without the need to make changes to production servers. Blue Lane says it can produce an emulated patch within 48 hours of a vendor's release and that the appliance slows packets by no more than half a millisecond. It's the sort of slap-in-the-forehead idea that makes you wonder why no one has done it until now.
Walk Amongst Ideas
In my conversations with IT managers, I find that many IT organizations are just as ingenious as these start-ups in finding unique solutions to their business challenges. But the key to finding creative solutions is getting out of that glass house. In early May, the Network Computing editors will meet for what's become our annual ideafest as we judge the Best of Interop competition. Each year we evaluate dozens of new products and technologies being demoed at Interop Las Vegas.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
There are many network courses that can address your present job's priorities and help you gain the needed skills to keep pace with industry changes and new technologies.
