An enterprise network is a complex and a dynamic environment that hosts a variety of devices, such as workstations, servers, printers, wireless access points, VoIP phones, switches, routers and more. Despite this, few enterprises maintain an up-to-date inventory and documentation of the devices on their networks. The reality is that devices are constantly added to the network without the knowledge of the enterprise’s IT staff.
A full understanding of the devices operating on the network is an absolute must for managing and securing the network. Logically, it is impossible to manage or secure an entire network with only partial network knowledge. Simply, how can you manage or secure a network against devices if you don’t know where they are or even exist?
Insightix Visibility – Stateful IT Visibility
Insightix Visibility obtains a complete inventory of all network devices, including firewalled, unmanaged and virtual devices, and provides location information and a full list of associated properties. Insightix Visibility also generates an accurate physical network topology map of the entire IT infrastructure.
The contextual information obtained by Insightix Visibility allows IT professionals to easily baseline their networks and successfully plan a range of critical IT initiatives, ensuring they are accurately deployed across their entire IT infrastructures.
Examples of such projects enabled by Insightix Visibility include:
- Network Access Control - automates the identification and location of all devices residing on the network in preparations for the deployment of a NAC system. By profiling all devices connected to the network, Insightix Visibility identifies devices that are not compatible with 802.1x and related standards, unmanageable, not part of the Windows Domain or unknown to the enterprise. By identifying these devices in real-time, Insightix Visibility simplifies and accelerates the deployment of a NAC system.
- Patch Management - identifies devices operating on the network that are not patched by the enterprise’s patch management solution. This allows IT staff to quickly identify and control unpatched devices. Insightix Visibility facilitates that all devices are compliant with the enterprise patch policy, lowering the overall exposure to viruses, Trojans and Malware.
- Intrusion Detection Prevention - provides the contextual information for intrusion detection/prevention systems to improve performance by giving an increased understanding of the events and reducing the amount of false negatives and false positives generated.
- Regulation Compliance - maintains the complete inventory of IT assets connected to the network, including historical usage information, helping enterprises satisfy a range of government regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
- Vulnerability Assessment provides vulnerability assessment systems with a complete target list of devices according to various parameters, such as OS and running network services. This reduces the time required by these systems to collect vulnerability data. Insightix Visibility eliminates the need for these systems to gather discovery-related information in a lengthy and incomplete manner.
Insightix Visibility offers additional value by significantly improving the response times to IT helpdesk inquires, asset tracking, performance issues, policy violations and security events.