TRANSFORMING ENTERPRISE

PRODUCTIVITY WITH HYBRID IT

A look into the mixed environment of mobile, cloud and data centerWWW.PULSESECURE.NET

Introduction

The New Three-Legged Stool

Managing The Security Risk

Leveraging the Cloud and Datacenter

The New Mobile Platform

Secure Access is Key

Embracing The CASB Model for Hybrid IT

Conclusion

Table of Contents

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PULSE SECURE PARTNERED

WITH RENOWNED IT SECURITY

WRITER JIM ROMEO TO EXPLORE

THE TOPIC OF HYBRID IT

AND THE IMPACT IT HAS ON

ORGANIZATIONS.

THE RISE OF HYBRID IT

www.pulsesecure.net 32 Transforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT

Mobile devices proliferate. So do applications. Cloud

computing is robust and growing. Organic databases

and applications residing at the IT datacenter have and

will likely always be accessed and utilized. All these

venues make up a Hybrid IT platform - or “three-legged

stool” for today’s knowledge worker to rest and rely on

for improved productivity.

The first leg of the stool is the mobile device. Knowledge

workers rely greatly on smartphones and tablets to access

sensitive data that may be in the cloud or datacenter.

At present, there are more mobile devices than people

on this planet; the number of devices entering the world

is growing five times faster than our world population.

Mobile users are now surpassing desktop users and over

80% of their usage is via applications. Applications are

growing and improving to enable access of all types and

are used to access the cloud.

The second leg of the stool is the cloud. Cloud computing

is expected to grow at 44% over the next five years.

Companies are spending about $13 billion per year on

it. Over 80% of companies say they are saving money by

moving operations to the cloud and over half of company

workloads are now conducted in the cloud.

The third leg is the existing silos of data, information

and applications that are home-based in the traditional

IT enterprise; they reside on company turf and have

never migrated elsewhere. The cloud, in conjunction with

devices, is used with legacy databases and home-based IT

infrastructure to perform many business functions. This

entire model has already been widely adopted and is likely

to continue in popularity and utility in the years to come.

“IT organizations are taking an ‘adopt and go’ strategy

to satisfy internal customer IT consumerization and

democratization requirements,” according to Chris

Howard, Vice President and Chief of Research at Gartner.

The success of Hybrid IT relies on a new robust security

perimeter with policy at its core; it makes the three-

legged stool strong and secure. This includes compliance,

authentication and a secure gateway to and from dispersed

endpoints. With the right tools and technology, the knowledge

worker of today and tomorrow will be most productive with

all the information that abounds in the public and private

cloud as well as their corporate network.

The New Three-Legged Stool of Today’s (and Tomorrow’s) Knowledge Worker: Mobility, Cloud Computing and the

Traditional IT Enterprise

In case you didn’t get the message, Hybrid IT has arrived.

We are living in a new business environment where

mobile devices connect to cloud computing and legacy IT

infrastructure.

Hybrid IT, an important infrastructure to enable efficiency

in today’s global IT environment, includes the use of cloud-

based applications and data with organic applications and

databases found in-house.

Cloud computing offers useful Software as a Service (SaaS)

applications, as well as cloud and data services. When cloud

computing is combined with mobile assets and organic

corporate databases and applications, workers enjoy great

productivity; the enterprise flourishes.

With Hybrid IT, workloads move between internal and

external IT infrastructures. This complementary relationship

allows workers to be nimble and flexible with regard to

where they work, what data they use, and when and how

they access that data to perform a task. Hybrid IT allows

them to do things they couldn’t do just a few short years ago.

Having said all of that, Hybrid IT has its challenges. Security

risks from a distributed workforce and a growing population

of mobile devices and apps, present concerns for today’s Chief

Information Security Officers (CISOs). How an organization

rises to meet demands and challenges of Hybrid IT is crucial.

Secure access to Hybrid IT when managed appropriately,

can positively transform enterprise IT.

“Hybrid IT is the new IT and is here to stay,” says Chris

Howard, Vice President and Chief of Research at Gartner.

“While the cloud market matures, IT organizations must

adopt a hybrid IT strategy that not only builds internal clouds

to house critical IT services and compete with public CSPs

(Cloud Solution Providers), but also utilizes the external cloud

to house non-critical IT services and data, augment internal

capacity, and increase IT agility. Hybrid IT creates symmetry

between internal and external IT services that will force an IT

and business paradigm shift for years to come.”

IT leaders must monitor this business paradigm shift in the

years ahead and embrace the change in order to harness its

full potential.

INTRODUCTIONWill Hybrid IT be the New Game Changer for Enterprises?

“Many IT organizations are adopting public cloud computing for non-critical IT services such as

development and test applications, or for turnkey software as a service (SaaS) applications such as Web analytics and CRM that can holistically

replace internal applications and enable access for a mobile workforce.”

54 www.pulsesecure.netTransforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT

Major IT security breaches dot the landscape of today’s

engaged knowledge worker. Hardly a day goes by

without another major breach making international

news. Think - Sony, Target, Home Depot, U.S. Office of

Personnel Management; they all told security officers

that in spite of their spending and investing, hackers get

in and steal sensitive data. Every IT leader knows the

consequences when hackers find a chink in the IT supply

chain somewhere. Damage from a security breach can be

devastating and detrimental.

This threat raises concern for security risk in a Hybrid IT

environment as data is accessed from anywhere, at any

time, operating in a Hybrid IT model sends a signal to CIOs

and CISOs: proceed with caution. 

The prevalence of multiple points of entry poses additional

security risk. Mobile device access and asset management

pose risk and must be controlled. The apps they use are

also a source of breach. While CISOs have worked hard

to build security to bolster against such risk and intrusion,

the pathways followed in a Hybrid IT environment demand

more. As the popularity of Hybrid IT grows, its adoption

and success depends on the management of security risk

to enable its success.

MANAGING THE SECURITY RISKSecurtiy: The Challenge to a Fully Functional Hybrid IT Environment

A world renowned global commodities and financial

derivatives exchange processes 3 billion contracts that are

worth approximately $1 quadrillion annually. Thousands

of worldwide users engage with their electronic trading

platform daily to access financial derivatives markets.

The exchange has implemented Identity-as-a-Service

(IdaaS) via a VPN gateway to enable access to thousands of

laptop users scattered about the globe. The IdaaS enables

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) enabled apps

for access to the cloud and datacenter applications.

The exchange experienced problems with the user

experience for logins to the IdaaS and VPN gateway.

Because of the sensitive nature of the data and the global

access requires of multiple users from many different

locations and many different devices, a multi-layered

security access was required. This, however, required

multiple logins. Users however found that multiple logins

is cumbersome since they require swift access to data

and the real-time operations of the exchange. In addition,

device compliance had relaxed. A robust approach to

device compliance enforcement was needed that also

enabled expedited sign-on for user access.

They exchanged implement a smarter solution with secure

access via Single Sign-On (SSO) technology integrated with

their existing VPN. This allowed users to log in once and then

have access to data center and cloud applications. It also

enabled uniformed device compliance enforcement through

VPN host checking. Thus it reinstated required enforcement

of device compliance that had previously fallen.

Expediting identity and access at a world renowned

institution of financial trade exemplifies the challenges that

IT security faced and a swift response with the right security

tools and solutions. By acting on this, traders and investors

who access the cloud and data centers at the exchange

are able to be very productive from around the world in

a secure environment without losing the user experience.

Leveraging the Cloud and Datacenter At A Major Financial Exchange

HYBRID

PUBLICPRIVATE

76 Transforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT www.pulsesecure.net

There are about 7.22 billion mobile devices in the world;

there are about 7.19 billion people on the planet. Research

from GSMA intelligence who tracks data on mobile

devices notes that their prevalence is growing about five

times faster than the population. About half the world’s

population subscribes to a mobile service of some kind.

This is because mobile devices are useful for everyday

life. Through a myriad of available apps, they allow

quick access to information and utilization of different

software applications – all in the cloud. Workers now

want the same utility from their employers letting them

access their corporate email and applications with their

personal mobile devices via Bring Your Own Device

(BYOD) practices. Workers can find customer data, create

a document and access financial information with the

same agility they have in their personal lives.

But it is important that enterprise information be managed

and controlled as secure mobile device containers that

allow, through appropriate software and applications,

a separation of personal business data. Mobile devices

must be compliant with existing security policies. Risk is

inherent with personal devices – Gartner found that one

in four business users surveyed admitted to having a

security issue on their private device in 2013.

In addition, apps on mobile phones are numerous and

enable entry into cloud applications. From a device, a

worker can be logged in and working from anywhere

and anytime. But apps must also be secure. The very

same convenience of access that mobile phones afford,

is also a source of intrusion. According to Pulse Secure’s

2014 Mobile Threat Report which researched some 2.5

million mobile applications, there were nearly one million

(931,620) unique malicious applications – a 391 percent

increase from 2013 alone.

Traceability and control of devices further challenge CISOs

in maintaining a secure perimeter. Identity and Access

Management (IAM), given the popularity and utilization of

mobile devices, has become the new IT perimeter.

“Authenticating users on a variety of endpoints should

provide the right balance of user experience, security and

workforce productivity,” according to Gartner’s research

report Refresh Authentication Choices to Improve Mobile

Workforce Remote Access (28 January 2015, by Gartner

Analysts Anmol Singh and John Girard). CISOs and IAM

leaders need to keep pace with new methods of remote

access for the mobile workforce in a constantly changing

work environment.

THE NEW MOBILE PLATFORMMobile device access is essential for productivity but security must continue to be a priority.

Securing this perimeter in real time as utilization grows is the challenge of CISOs. Melding the effective control of user identity and device identity

with device compliance is the new objective for CISOs in a Hybrid IT environment. Such identities represent their new IT security perimeter.

www.pulsesecure.net 98 Transforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT

Challenging the Security of Hybrid ITWhen mobile workers utilize BYOD to access sensitive

corporate data, there is a risk of non-compliance and

exposure of sensitive data to unwanted parties.

SaaS is very useful for today’s business entity. However,

such platforms pose security risk. 53% of respondents

in KPGM’s 2014 Cloud Survey Report cited “data loss and

privacy risk” as the greatest concern when adopting the cloud.

Sensitive corporate information will reside into the cloud

through SaaS vendors such as Dropbox, Office 365,

Salesforce and Concur. This data may become a target

for artful hackers to use their tricks and methods to

exfiltrate data. Users rely on a safe gateway or tunnel to

and through the cloud.

Secure the Tunnel To the Cloud and the DatacenterGetting a grip on securing the pathways between devices

and data, involves securing the tunnel between them. The

clincher for IT leadership is to allow secure access and

insure the tunnel is protected and controlled.

How does this happen?

Principally, by implementing authorization access control

services for employees and users – from any device,

anywhere, at any time, it happens. This means using

existing Secure Sockets Layer virtual private network

(SSL VPN) gateways to access the datacenter while also

SECURE ACCESS IS KEYEnterprises require a secure tunnel to the cloud and data center

53%

relying on a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) to insure

a secure pathway between users and the cloud provider.

Enforcing device compliance is key in both cases to protect

the integrity of enterprise data. Such tools insure the

tunnel of Hybrid IT use is not only accessible, but secure.

Secure the Data not the DeviceBuilding a gateway is part of meeting the security challenge

of Hybrid IT. Because workers take advantage of the BYOD

approach, and managing the access and authentication of their

device must be a critical component of any security strategy.

This requires the use of a device container, so workers can

utilize BYOD securely and peacefully coexist with personal

and corporate applications on their device. The container

eliminates the enterprise need to manage the entire

device and protects worker privacy.

Securing the tunnel using identity management tools and

technology, and ultimately securing the device container,

affords today’s competitive knowledge worker the freedom

to collaborate and work together globally in a secure

environment – with any device accessing information in

the datacenter or in the cloud, wheneverand wherever

they choose.

Personal Productivity: The PayoffLocation, location, location – it really doesn’t matter

anymore. Because users work anywhere, at any time,

and are much more productive. Thanks to advances in

technology, this productivity gain is possible, even though

evolving security risk continuously challenges it.

Secure the tunnels to the datacenter and the cloud, enable

workers to use any secured device – be it their own or not,

and you have the ingredients for a very productive and

secure work environment. Insuring remote and mobile

security should encompass multilayered access that is

easy on the user without sacrificing security risk. With the

right solutions and tools, expediting access will also aid in

making Hybrid IT the productive platform that it is.

Today’s worker is able to do things they could not do

before – simply because secure access technology allows

them to do it. And they can produce not just from their

cubicle, office or desk, but anywhere, in any time zone,

from anywhere in the world.

This is a game changer.

www.pulsesecure.net 1110 Transforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT

A CASB model is ideal to enable Hybrid IT. It allows access

to numerous common cloud-based SaaS applications via

mobile devices and use cloud applications and corporate

data parked in legacy databases and servers at their

parent company. It is a value-added approach.

However, proceed with caution.

Its full embrace must honestly ask and answer some

key questions before taking this route. Here are seven

questions to consider to accelerate its success:

1.What skill sets and IT competencies will be required

to maintain this model once in place? There are new

apps, new IT silos, and perhaps several new ways of doing

business. Is everyone ready and trained to embrace them

and work with a CASB model?

2. What about Scalability? What will we face when it’s

time to scale upward – when that time comes (and it likely

will)? As the enterprises continue to advance and scale is

the CASB model ready and able to scale with it?

3. How will we manage increasing operational

complexity as new technology and new approaches

come about and are required to compete? Everyday

a new wave of technology arrives. Often this adds to

operational complexity. So how will this all be incorporated

and anticipated with CASB?

4. What about extending existing services and apps?

Will Hybrid IT afford a seamless blend? Anticipate expected

challenges and difficulties ahead of time in order to link

services with devices and apps. Focus on swiftly making

them available and integrate this with CASB.

5. What is our plan for compliance enforcement?

A dispersed workforce with multiple devices presents

compliance risk. Will device compliance and enforcement

be incorporated into your CASB model so that it does not

fall wayward?

6. How much can we rely on CASB? Will CASB’s proxy

technology – sitting right smack dab in the data path,

deliver the service we demand and require? How reliable

is it and will it interfere at all with data access?

7. Will this all be transparent to the user experience

once CASB is in place? Users want easy access to data – be

it from the datacenter or the cloud; they do not want to sign

on several times and even get kicked out, only to have to

start over. Will this happen? It shouldn’t. Insure transparency

is part of initial planning, but ongoing plans as well.

CASB can be a very effective approach. Any pitfalls in its

embrace may be overcome. However, such questions need

to be on the table when partnering with a CASB solutions

provider. Retooling your network and providing users

trusted seamless access to your datacenter and the cloud

is a wonderful advanced strategy.

Take time upfront to answer important questions and

stimulate discussion so that CASB yields the true dividends

and ROI you expect and ultimately avoid any pitfalls.

Embracing The Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) Model for Hybrid IT: Seven Key Questions You Need

To Ask and Answer To Avoid Common Pitfalls

As mobile device ownership and usage grows and

matures, knowledge workers increasingly fill their

personal mobile devices with the rich offerings of SaaS

applications. Enterprises must adapt their compliance,

authorization and access security solutions to provide

multi-layered protection without making application and

information cumbersome to the user.

CISOs are challenged to make Hybrid IT safe and secure

by meeting all the challenges that it poses. Namely, they

must authenticate user and device identity and through

cutting-edge identity management tools and solutions,

provide a safe tunnel by which applications in the cloud and

on their very own premises may be accessed and utilized.

In the end, this is the great benefit that allows Hybrid IT

to flourish. And when Hybrid IT flourishes, so too does

employee productivity and the entire organization.

About Pulse SecurePulse Secure, LLC is a leading provider of access and

mobile security solutions to both enterprises and service

providers. Enterprises from every vertical and of all sizes

utilize the company’s Pulse virtual private network (VPN),

network access control and mobile security products to

enable end user mobility securely and seamlessly in their

organizations. Pulse Secure’s mission is to enable open,

integrated enterprise system solutions that empower

business productivity through seamless mobility.

About the AuthorJim Romeo is a freelance copywriter, workshop and

seminar leader, speaker, coach, and author, with a focus

on business and technology topics. He has written more

than 800 feature articles on a wide array of topics, including

IT, IT security, engineering design, marketing, supply chain

management, telecommunications, emerging technologies,

and leadership and professional development. His

writing credits include Desktop Engineering, The Maritime

Executive, SC Magazine and many more. He has a

background in engineering and holds an MBA in marketing

from Columbia University in New York.

Copyright 2015 Pulse Secure, LLC. All rights reserved. Pulse Secure and the Pulse Secure logo are registered trademarks or Pulse Secure, LLC. All trademarks, service marks, registered marks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners. Pulse Secure assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document. Pulse Secure reserves the right to change, modify, transfer, or otherwise revise this publication without notice.

CONCLUSIONWith Robust Security Measures, Hybrid IT Flourishes

1312 www.pulsesecure.netTransforming Enterprise Productivity with Hybrid IT

Pulse Secure LLC

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San Jose, CA 95134

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