In today’s financial world, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are being called on to deliver the technical agility required to meet corporate growth targets and capture new market opportunities. This rightfully returns the CIO’s focus to revenue attainment and not simply to cost control.

CIOs must also assure that the constant change to a network does not compromise network performance, introduce new security risks or cause the organization to fall out of compliance with industry regulations. To manage data security proactively, leading CIOs are combining network assurance technology and practices to validate that their security and compliance policies match reality across all networks: headquarters, divisions, even connected partners and remote offices. This approach minimizes human input, shifting compliance check-ups from reliance on administrator “best guesses” to auditable, automated processes. Network assurance solutions quantify risk from a network-centric point of view and measure the impact of network change on security, availability and compliance.

One major regional bank uses network assurance to test whether its business continuity plans are sound. The bank uses network assurance technology to scan its disaster recovery infrastructure, determining whether its assets are appropriately secured and linked to internal resources and third parties. In a matter of hours, the bank’s senior IT executives can validate that the disaster recovery infrastructure is in compliance and not compromised by network change.

In another case, through the use of a network assurance solution, one of the world’s largest banks discovered an unsecured high-speed WAN connection from a recent acquisition’s infrastructure. This connection opened the software company’s corporate intranet to potential malicious activity.

At the highest levels of IT security, a top defense agency leveraged a network assurance solution to validate compliance to security policies. Officials needed to identify unauthorized connections inside the agency’s designated secure area. Using network assurance tools, the massive network was scanned in hours, during peak usage, without disrupting service. This ensured that connections to external networks were authorized and documented as per security policy, while confirming internal devices were appropriately protected from security breaches.

CIOs can increase their focus on top-line business objectives – and sleep easier – when they have a regularly updated understanding of their network assets. No matter how one addresses data security, it is critical to know everything – every device, connection point, etc., – that touches the network. Numerous blue-chip organizations have proven this can be achieved without increases to administrative overhead or disruption to operations.

Jeremy Nazarian is Vice President, Marketing at Lumeta, 732-357-3532; email: jnazarian@lumeta.com; web: www.lumeta.com.