CISCO, Splunk and our digital DNA
In my previous blog post I wrote that I felt there was an important, even bigger picture behind CISCO’s acquisition of Splunk than combining two technology powerhouses with complimentary product sets. The concept of the SOC¹ of the Future was discussed both in the keynote and executive sessions.
Creating ever more advanced SOCs is an important warm-up act to the main show. Ever since computers appeared in business they have been becoming ever more important. The move from “data processing” to “information technology” is part of the story, but the “computer says no” meme is probably a better representation of how society views the role of computers in their lives.
The reality is that digital systems have become critical infrastructure, organically, subtly, under the radar. From a convenience and cost saving mechanism, information technology has become a fundamental part of how everything operates. You just need to see what happens to travelers when airline or airport systems go down. We are truly dependent on our digital life support systems. I think of these systems as being our Digital DNA. DNA is described as “containing the genetic code that is unique to every individual” and being the “needed for an organism to develop, survive and reproduce.” The digital DNA for an individual enterprise is specific to that enterprise and is essential to its survival.
DNA is a single molecule, however in most organizations IT systems were held by several often-warring tribes: hardware, operating systems, applications, and security. Security is, alas, always an after thought. Initially hardware was always king as it required the highest budget, but that has been eroded over the decades, and with cloud computing, networks and infrastructure as code (IaC), software and software-like approaches are taking over much of what used to be hardware’s unique domain. Operating systems used to be tightly bound to the hardware, requiring their own maintenance and wrangling, but this has changed completely. In fact, hardware and the associated operating systems has merged to form into infrastructure.
However that still leaves applications and security sitting staring at each other, often shifting the blame from one to the other or trying to offload it onto infrastructure. Smarter organizations have realized that, just like medieval Europe, merging smaller fiefdoms leads to greater stability and economic growth. Unifying the monitoring of an organization’s digital assets is a huge step towards improved digital resilience. It is the first step to recognizing the corporate dependency on IT, something that normally only happens when it goes wrong.
Add AI and its need for good, clean data to the mix, and without this unifying approach you have a highly-volatile cocktail. Without centralized monitoring, control and remediation this becomes a Molotov Cocktail. With such control we can take full ownership of the potential of our digital DNA. Well, perhaps not the reproduce part although with AI we should be able to increase our capacity for innovation.
Adding Splunk’s superb monitoring, detection, reporting and remediation technology to CISCO’s portfolio of tools and technologies has the potential to provide truly a full-stack observability and monitoring solution. To ensure digital resilience we need monitoring and control from the metal and fiber that runs the networks up to the latest AI-enabled applications, by way of legacy systems. It’s not all there, but as an industry we must be heading in this direction.
¹ Security Operations Center.
