No, but it can certainly reduce friction.
Cloud adoption is no longer an if, but a when. Even Gartner says there’s no such thing as a ‘no cloud policy.’
The winds of technology change are blowing, but no enterprise is talking about 100% cloud adoption in the near term. Hybrid IT environments are and will be the norm, as organizations continue to rationalize which systems, databases and apps will migrate to the cloud and when, and which will stay on-prem. Cloud versus on-prem decisions for how to deploy security services only compound this complexity.
Managing the technical aspects of that migration is challenge enough, without running into administrative roadblocks like licensing issues. In this post, we’ll explore how Imperva takes licensing out of the cloud migration equation so our customers are protected, no matter where the winds of technology change take their apps.
Managing a Moving Target
Most enterprise IT organizations are configuring and maintaining systems to secure hundreds of applications and databases. In many cases, digital transformation is growing this count exponentially. That’s a moving target all by itself.
In a hybrid environment, nothing is static. Network topology changes and process fluctuations are the norm, as organizations plan and execute their migrations in real-time. However, legacy vendor licensing models are frequently tied to:
- Whether the protected asset is based in a data center or in the cloud.
- Whether the security service itself is deployed on-prem or runs as-a-service.
That’s a vendor-centric rather than a customer-centric approach that can add budgetary and procurement complexity to what may be an already complex migration problem.
Furthermore, as renewal dates loom, determining which systems should be licensed for a data center implementation – and how many are moving off that license and onto a cloud license – can sabotage migration plans.
Verisk Analytics is a leading data analytics provider encompassing more than 40 companies. CISO Ted Cooney explains how they faced this issue, and took deployment into their own hands:
“The size and nature of our company makes it hard to project exactly what solutions we are going to need as we migrate to the cloud. We don’t want to be stuck with the wrong mix of cloud or on-premises solutions as this could hold up our migration given that our procurement process to add new licenses can take a month.”
To stay agile in its migration to the cloud, Verisk Analytics opted for Imperva’s innovative licensing model, FlexProtect.
“Imperva FlexProtect gives me the agility I need to move solutions around quickly, and it’s one less worry as I migrate to the cloud,” continued Cooney.
FlexProtect for Applications is a flexible licensing approach, providing the choice to deploy Imperva application security products when and where they are needed — on-prem, in the cloud, or both.
FlexProtect for Data offers licensing for a set number of database servers, regardless of network topology or process fluctuations. Imperva software can be deployed and re-deployed to meet evolving network and capacity requirements for those licensed database servers. Think of it as ‘mix and match.’
Innovation Doesn’t Stop with Technology
Innovation is often about simplification, and not just in the tech realm. In creating FlexProtect as a flexible, single-license approach to securing apps, databases and files, we’ve insured that the right mix of Imperva data security products can be deployed whenever and however works best for each unique enterprise architecture.
For example, one Imperva customer, a large mobile operator, used FlexProtect to augment its existing portfolio of Imperva solutions. SecureSphere WAF had already been deployed in the data center. FlexProtect allows them to implement Incapsula DDoS, CDN and load balancing on top of the original SecureSphere deployment.
Another customer, a large healthcare company, used FlexProtect to mix and match its solutions based on what specific business units needed. Imperva Incapsula was deployed for its web properties and SecureSphere WAF was deployed for their on-premises applications.
And finally, a sports apparel company chose FlexProtect so that the IT team could use either Incapsula cloud-based services or SecureSphere on-premises solutions. They know they need to move to the cloud, they just don’t know when or how long the migration will take. Imperva’s FlexProtect is simplifying the process. Now the IT team can make decisions about their cloud migration based on what makes sense for their organization, rather than pacing their progress with licensing renewal dates.
Cloud Migration Next Steps
Data and apps are at the top of the cloud migration list for most organizations, but in the meantime, hybrid IT is the rule rather than the exception. And, by its very definition, hybrid IT is an interim state. Every organization is at a different place on the migration path from data center to cloud.
Imperva’s FlexProtect aims to take licensing out of the cloud migration equation with a single license at one price whether Imperva security solutions are deployed in a rack or in the cloud.
Contact us to see demo of Imperva solutions and learn more about flexible licensing for a hybrid deployment.
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