Network security continues to be an area of concern for organizations around the world. In the Asia Pacific, the evolving IT landscape in the region requires organizations to pay extra attention to their network security.
Network security basically ensures an organization’s network and data are well secured and protected from breaches, intrusions, and other threats. This is a vast and overarching term that describes hardware and software solutions as well as processes or rules and configurations relating to network use, accessibility, and overall threat protection.
Today, IT monitoring solutions are becoming increasingly in demand across some of the high growth sectors in Asia. Statistics show that the global network security size is projected to reach US$ 53.11 billion by 2029 with the rising number of startups and increasing internet penetration pushing the demand.
While China continues to dominate the network security industry in the Asia Pacific, the ASEAN region is also witnessing an evolution in network security. In fact, the increase in demand has led to more network security solutions providers in the region offering the best monitoring and security services to the businesses in the region.
The region has also witnessed a boom in data centers and is expected to see more being built in the future. Ensuring the network for these data centers is secured is prerogative organizations need to ensure.
To understand more about the state of network security in ASEAN, Tech Wire Asia speaks to Helmut Binder, CEO of Paessler AG. A leader in network security, Paessler AG has been offering monitoring solutions for businesses across all industries around the world. The company now has its sight set on Southeast Asia with the region’s networking capabilities increasing rapidly.
How has Asean’s IT landscape evolved when it comes to network security?
Helmut Binder, CEO of Paessler AG.
Due to the increasing usage of services relying on the Internet in the ASEAN region, the number of cyber threats continuously grows. We see this trend in every country in the region. This is not only a concern for classic IT networks, but it is also impacting the industrial space as more and more companies integrate their Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) networks.
As data streams between software and hardware become more integrated, it is now more important than ever to not only monitor the IT infrastructure, but also the OT and IoT environments. With the rise of IT/OT convergence, it is now more crucial than ever to have monitoring capabilities, allowing organizations to better spot and investigate system changes and problems to mitigate potential issues or downtime.
How is Paessler making the most of the data center boom in Southeast Asia and the critical role played by monitoring solutions to maintain data center uptime?
Being able to offer uptime is one of the core business goals of any data center. Positive uptime allows data centers to align themselves with the modern-data requirements that many businesses require today. Unplanned downtime is not just an IT problem, it’s a business problem. Downtime can be costly as according to Gartner, up to $5,600 per minute, going up to a potential 540,000 per hour, and preventing downtime by securing uptime is of the utmost importance.
To ensure excellent performance and trouble-free operation of a data center, it is essential to keep a constant eye on a whole range of different components, both in IT and in facilities. This is important as it can help detect flaws as early as possible and thus avoid problems, damages, and breakdowns. When you proactively monitor your environment, you will help gain the advantage of spotting issues before they become problematic and increasing your response time in the unfortunate event that they do occur.
For example, our PRTG monitoring solutions monitor all infrastructure components like the power and cooling of a data center as well as the hardware and applications running in the data center.
When it comes to monitoring solutions as the first line of defense in network security, how is Paessler dealing with the demands as cybersecurity becomes a greater concern?
Security, especially in data centers, is a key aspect of IT that must be given special attention. Besides IT infrastructure risks, the requirements for the premises and environmental aspects must also be considered. For example, overheating or even cable fires can cause massive damage, and leaks in air conditioning systems release water that can cause short circuits or damage IT equipment.
Unauthorized intrusion is also a constant risk. Extensive IoT sensor technology is required here to detect humidity, room temperature, hot spots, smoke, and other environmental influences.
We further developed PRTG so that it can monitor all these IoT sensors and systems 24/7 with regards to their availability and functions, and at the same time collect the surveillance data. This can then be displayed clearly in dashboards that allow businesses greater oversight over their systems and IT infrastructures.
Lastly, can you share about Paessler’s investment plans in the region and building the Malaysia hub, channel, and partner strategy?
Paessler announced strong business growth in ASEAN markets last year across various verticals like healthcare, public transport, education, and public sectors, registering up to 115% increase compared to the previous year. We are confident in our growth trajectory, and we’re expecting to see accelerated growth across the region in 2022.
We are seeing this strong growth over the pandemic due to the market’s increased need to reduce risks, enable better monitoring of IT applications and infrastructures, save time, maintain business continuity, have access to scalability, and stay compliant with the changing needs of IT and OT.
Through launching our subsidiary and building the ASEAN hub in Malaysia, we look towards strengthening our regional presence. Our local teams will have the expertise in business intricacies within the respective markets they operate in.
Furthermore, we have also formed strong partnerships across the region, Daya Cipta Mandiri Monitoring in Indonesia and IT Essentials Limited in Thailand, enabling local businesses and pushing for cloud adoption as well as digital transformation.
On top of this, our strong local partners who know the market well will be able to position themselves strategically within their segments, enabling them to better cater to the dynamic needs of these markets. We want to provide expert monitoring solutions to support companies in their digital transformation process. In this context, we also look toward providing training to end customers and supporting our channel partners through elevated partner programs.
Source : https://techwireasia.com/2022/05/asean-demand-network-security/
