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Lock that information

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DQW Bureau
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In today's dynamically changing business scenario with rapid
growth and competition, enterprises need faster adaptability and response to
market situations. This is pushing enterprises for high availability of both
intra and inter-organizational information to enable better and faster
decision-making. Enterprises are also opening up and integrating with a larger
ecosystem of partner in the supply chain and networking with both their
downstream and upstream partners in the ecosystem, so as to streamline and
optimize their value chain.

Security Transition

This transition from a bounded environment prior to supply chain
integration, to the unbounded environment resulting from connectivity has thrown
a number of security issues for the enterprises. The working environment has
also changed considerably with employees mobility increasing. Anticipated
uncontrolled deployment of PDAs, smart phones and other futuristic devices
coupled with higher mobility of employees having connectivity on the move will
lead to security issues that need to be tackled head on.

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If we look at the security evolution in the above scenario,
security was never viewed from an enterprise-wide business approach and had
traditionally always taken a discrete isolated approach. The reasons for this
were simple; organizations wanted to protect their assets, so perimeter security
was deployed. Security was not linked to business processes tightly and
organizations were not much worried about information security as the adoption
of networking and mobility was limited.

Security will move from perimeter security to next level with
the need for higher availability coupled with compliance to regulations putting
Identity & Access Management (IAM) solutions in the mainstream. So...

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Driving a Boom

Enterprises will need to design a centralized security policy, which takes
into consideration the needs of employees and partners alike. IAM solutions will
also help enterprises realize the dual benefits of simplified compliance
management and centralized security management for a diverse set of
applications.

According to IDC, in 2005 the overall security software market
in India stood at $66.6 million, while the security appliances market was
estimated to be

$31.5 million. While many security appliances were launched in the 2005/2006
timeframe, these have been deployed mostly by small and medium business (SMB)
enterprises. UTM (Unified Threat Management) appliances will provide greater
flexibility to enterprise as they are deploying UTM in branches within the
larger perimeter defense. SMBs find security appliances a good option as they
get good functionality and easier manageability at a relatively lower cost.

Managed security services are on the rise and enterprises are
looking towards outsourcing security management to third party service
providers. Market adoption of security solutions in 2005/2006 was concentrat-ed
mainly amongst large and mid-size enterprises in the country. Vendors in the
security software market were seen to be targeting verticals such as BFSI,
telecommunications, government and the services sector during 2005/2006.
Enterprises in these verticals have huge repositories of critical data and
therefore their security solutions requirements come with the increased
complexity of geographical spread. Not to mention that manufacturing sector has
also started investing in enterprise-wide security solutions in 2006.

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Praveen Sengar


maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in


(The author is assistant manager, Software & Services Research, IDC
India)

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