VALUE MATTERS
Lower costs, however, don't necessarily make for a better solution. Each of the architectures here brings unique value to the market. The service architecture offers a compelling case with ease of deployment and management. Because all of the scanned data is stored at the Qualys data center, there is no effort or cost associated with the maintenance of the underlying database or infrastructure. Qualys is responsible for the optimization of the database and application infrastructure, providing for data fault tolerance (Qualys uses Oracle clustering technology) and troubleshooting database and application issues. Of course, customers must depend on the service provider to fix failures in a timely fashion. And since the connection to the Qualys data center is via SSL, losing Internet connectivity means no running scans, reports on data, or altering the system. While a sustained Internet outage rarely occurs these days, it's a risk that needs to be considered.
Besides connectivity risks, the Qualys solution also separates architects from the inner workings of the solution, so there's less customization that can be done. Qualys does provide an API to access data, but it's not as full-featured as that found in appliance- or software-based solutions. Customers, for example, can't download data based on a custom query. Other solutions, such as Foundstone's, allow customers to see the details of a running scan, whereas with Qualys customers must wait until a scan is completed.
Meanwhile, the term "appliance" means different things to different people. The nCircle appliance has few moving parts and a locked-down operating system, making it cheaper to install and maintain.
By contrast, the Foundstone appliance is essentially a preconfigured Windows 2000 system. Granted, the operating system has been locked down by Foundstone's team of security experts, but it is still a Windows 2000 system susceptible to all of the Windows attacks. While the Foundstone approach shares some of the benefits of an appliance solution, such as ease of management, there is also the potential to incur additional support costs for database and OS issues. As with nCircle, Foundstone's customers can gain access to the underlying data by directly accessing the database. However, nCircle requires that data be exported to another database for custom processing.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
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.
