NetEvents: Enterprises must keep tabs on networks

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Enterprises need to know what is passing through their networks in order to keep within compliance and regulatory rules, delegates were told at the NetEvents conference in Evian, France.

Speaking in a debate session at the conference, Karl Driesen, vice president of sales at security appliance firm Infoblox said that future EU directives may demand that organisations take a granular approach to monitoring networks and current network access solutions, focusing on authentication, only detect problems in the network and don't give a proper overview of what is happening in the network.

"Ask CIOs who did what this morning, where, when and what applications they used and they can't provide an immediate answer. But companies have a real need to know what is happening in real time for compliance and regulations of the future," he said.

Andy Buss, senior analyst at research firm Canalys, said that investments in security on the back of regulations, such as Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley are for the most part in the past and this meant that security vendors have to bring out new products to solve new security problems within enterprises. These product also need to prove their cost effectiveness.

"Security now has to fight for its budget with other priorities in the network, like Wan optimisation, data replication and data centre availability. Security vendors need a very clear return on investment argument to get the message through," Buss said.

James Collinge, director of product management at 3Com's security division TippingPoint said that security budgets will vary from organisation to organisation as different priorities will have a bearing on what is spent on security equipment.

"Looking at this problem from the budget perspective, it comes down to the risk tolerance of the customer and the pain points they are trying to address - and that varies depending on the industry they are in," he said.

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