The rise of DevOps has helped organisations run faster in the race to develop and improve organisational and customer-facing applications and systems. Digital transformation has created a perfect environment for the DevOps methodology to thrive, because it puts technology at the heart of the organisation’s business strategy.
DevOps is about speed
DevOps is an approach that combines two important IT functions: development and operations. Previously, these two disciplines were kept separate but, under a DevOps model, they’re brought together so that the same team works on an application’s entire lifecycle. From development and testing to production and ongoing maintenance, the team is constantly focused on ensuring that the product they deliver is operationally stable, sometimes trading off quality versus speed.
Using automation and a swathe of modern tools and practices, DevOps teams can help organisations solve business and customer-related challenges quickly and effectively. This approach also lets businesses ensure their products are increasingly resilient so they can meet customers’ needs.
But speed can potentially open up security gaps
These benefits have made DevOps teams highly sought-after, especially for organisations looking to innovate and transform at speed. However, the DevOps approach has one significant downside. The velocity at which DevOps projects proceed makes them highly vulnerable to security gaps and weaknesses.
In some cases, this is simply a side-effect of moving fast and focusing on functionality. In other cases, it could be the result of overlooking security altogether in favour of the perceived speed and agility benefits of not adding security to the project. However, the truth is that DevOps projects that don’t take security into account from the beginning and implement strong controls from the outset could be setting the organisation up for a significant security breach.
It’s possible to protect the organisation even at speed
Agility is essential in today’s business environment. Any security option that limits agility or requires businesses to slow down is unlikely to be enthusiastically embraced. Fortunately, it’s not a matter of choosing between agility and security; it is possible to have both.
It’s important to remember that digital transformation isn’t the end of the journey. In many ways, it’s only the beginning. And ongoing optimisation and evolution must be a part of that journey.
There is no single set of security policies and controls that can be put in place once and then forgotten. As the organisation continues to transform and optimise, it will be essential to constantly tweak and update the security measures that are in place.
The most effective way to do this while ensuring that all the security measures are in line with best practices and the organisation’s risk appetite is to implement a network security governance model.
ditno offers dynamic tools that leverage machine learning to automate the process of network governance. This approach lets organisations make changes in the comfort that the automated network security governance model will constantly assess the security controls in real time. It avoids the need for manual checks and balances, which can be error-prone and fail to identify potential gaps and weaknesses.
ditno’s solution can be applied across your on-premises and cloud environments automatically. This ensures your security controls remain consistent regardless of whether your environment is exclusively on-premises, in the cloud, or any hybrid mixture.
To find out how ditno can help your organisation to safely move at speed, contact the team today.
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