The process of network segmentation has been a revolutionary innovation in the world of networking and communication. The practice of micro-segmentation, on top of that, has been an additional benefit for offices and organizations in terms of securing distinct workloads. Now, you may wonder about what micro-segmentation is. Have you heard this term before? Well, the majority of working professionals and office authorities are yet to attain familiarity with this process. If you’re one of them, you’re a step behind your competitors in terms of securing your data and network. In this article, we will discuss every detail of micro-segmentation to help you familiarize yourself with the process.
What is Micro-segmentation?
While running an enterprise, you’re bound to incorporate your organization’s functions with cloud environments and data centers to keep workloads faster and effortless. Micro-segmentation enables you to create multiple zones in a specific cloud environment or data server to keep your workloads and tasks separate from each other.
Attempting to perform all tasks through a single cloud server may decrease your company’s productivity. Additionally, high traffic in your office’s main cloud server or network server may prevent the work pace to gear up. With micro-segmentation, you create multiple zones in your network server and dedicate each network segment to perform a particular task at once. By doing this, you prevent your network servers and cloud servers from getting overloaded.
How Does Micro-segmentation Work?
The main function of micro-segmentation is based on network virtualization. Network virtualization is a technology that’s used widely to protect network servers from vivid cyber threats and enhance their performance. Ideally, micro-segmentation software is used to segment networks into multiple network zones.
Micro-segmentation software utilizes network virtualization technology to use distinct granular zones in cloud deployments and data servers. The process isolates all the network zones created in cloud deployments to handle different workloads simultaneously without interrupting each other’s output. Alongside, micro-segmentation secures every network created in a data center separately to make the entire network environment secure and protected.
Visibility, granular security, and dynamic adaptation are the pillars of network segmentation. Visibility into all network traffic is the fundamental feature of micro-segmentation which makes this process securer. As micro-segmented networks are visible to network security teams easily, the security of this process gets enhanced automatically.
Secondly, granular security is an important point that makes micro-segmentation a denial networking feature. As a network administrator, you get the opportunity to create specific sets of terms and policies for the accessors. Naturally, you enhance the security features of the network zones you created in your main cloud server separately. As a result, the overall security of your main cloud network gets enhanced too.
Granular security defends your main network server from cyber attackers. As you segment your primary cloud network into multiple microzones or segments and secure them separately, cyber attackers and hackers can’t break into your main server directly. Even if someone breaks into the defender system of a micro-network segment, he won’t be able to corrupt the entire network immediately. Moreover, you will get notified even if a single network segment gets compromised and you can secure all other segments as a network administrator.
Micro-segmentation comes with dynamic adaptation and that feature makes it possible to retain the conventional security protocols in your servers while your workloads shift to other environments. Often you need to move workloads from one network environment to another. With network segmentation, it’s possible to keep the security features intact.
So, it’s a conclusive fact that network micro-segmentation is the best choice in terms of enhancing the security of your cloud servers and network servers.
Best Micro-segmentation Practices
Firstly, you need to ensure that the visibility of your micro network segments remains uninterrupted in terms of north-south and east-west traffic. When it comes to the visibility of network segments, the segments must be visible to the entire traffic to increase your team’s or organization’s productivity.
Incorporating a zero-trust framework with network micro-segmentation is a vital part. The accessors of the segments created by you should be verified and authenticated. The zero-trust framework will decline an unidentified assessor’s access to the micro-networks in your cloud server.
Tagging and labeling the workloads in your cloud server makes your business network more responsive and agile. While you tag and label the workloads of your business server, security enhancement occurs automatically. Workload tagging helps you differentiate existing and new workloads and manage your business functions more efficiently. As you tag the workloads in your cloud server, you eliminate the access of unwanted accessors to the tagged workloads and the network segments specified for the workload.
Micro-segmentation lets you create some regulatory policies for all the users of your cloud server or network server. This practice helps you enforce exclusive policies regarding accessing the micro-networks in your server. That way, you prevent some unwanted attacks like DNS attacks to some extent. Users who don’t adhere to your accessory policies are directly kicked out of your cloud networks by the automated security software of your server. Naturally, hackers and attackers may find it difficult to break into your system and access micro-networks when there are strict accessory policies.
As micro-segmentation secures the servers and the networks from the workload levels, workloads and networks rarely get corrupted when you have enabled micro-segmentation. The compilation of the micro-segmentation practices mentioned above makes it possible to assure security and protection from workload levels.
Benefits of Micro-segmentation
1. Excellent workload protection
You already know that micro-segmentation emphasizes workload protection. But to what extent does it do so? Well, micro-segmentation defends workloads and applications even if you deploy them in multi-cloud data servers. When it comes to single-cloud data servers, micro-segmentation has no alternative. But the process delivers astonishing results in terms of multi-cloud data servers too. Micro-segmentation software defends workloads and applications from unwanted threats by reducing attack surfaces drastically. That’s not possible with any other network security process.
2. APT defense mechanism
Micro-segmentation consists of the advanced persistent threat defense mechanism. The specialty of this mechanism is that it goes beyond the capabilities of general threat detection mechanisms and detects hard-to-detect malware threats. In addition to that, the threat mechanism ensures that the network resources of a particular cloud server remain inaccessible to attackers and hackers.
3. Compiling security protocols becomes effortless
Every cloud server comes with specific security protocols. Your server still stands the chance to get compromised even after the security patches and protocols are in place. Compiling all the security protocols of a cloud server and using the collective features of all the protocols is necessary to rule out potential cyber threats. With micro-segmentation, that becomes possible easily.
So, these were the beneficial factors that take micro-segmentation to a different level in terms of network and server security.
Conclusion
Throughout the article, we have elaborated on the factors related to micro-segmentation. The utility of micro-segmentation in network protection can’t be overlooked. Official servers and company networks demand additional precautions, and micro-segmentation is the best strategy for them. Smart network micro-segmentation strategies are also mentioned that will help you imply the process conveniently. If you’re worried about cyber attackers, you’re supposed to enable micro-segmentation in your organization’s cloud server immediately. So, utilize what you’ve learned about micro-segmentation, and make your network servers secure.