Be sure to revisit data center security in the new year

The landscape of the data center industry has change dramatically over the past few years. The rapid rise of the could and greater interconnectivity between all types of hardware in the data center have rendered traditional perimeter defense strategies obsolete. In fact, a recent Gartner survey showed that over 80 percent of modern data center security breaches aren't even detectable by perimeter security solutions, said Data Center Knowledge. This reality stresses the need for IT teams to adapt modern responses to the latest threats and think outside the box when it comes to securing their data against unwanted access.

Stop wasting time with obsolete solutions
The verdict is in, and go-to security strategies like firewalls or directing traffic through choke points is simply no longer effective. Furthermore, these static security solutions make it very difficult to make small adjustments to security protocols, and adding a long list of exceptions to your firewalls is hardly much of an improvement. InfoWorld emphasized that IT managers consider transitioning toward dynamic security strategies that prioritizes decoupling workloads and uses natural-language syntax in lieu of IP addresses to organize and label security policies.

Preempt potential security flaws when updating your facility
Even changes to legacy data centers exposed the facility to greater risk. Adjustments to infrastructure or the integration of a new application can sometimes forces your IT team to deactivate security protocols or migrate applications and files to a new location. These scenarios disrupt the day-to-day operations of your facility and make the network more vulnerable to infiltration. That's why it makes sense for IT teams to include considerations for potential attacks into their organizational plans. Utilizing creative strategies, such as using a remote console server to help facilitate asset migration between multiple data centers, give IT teams greater flexibility and control over how to secure hardware in times of transition.

Utilize encryption whenever possible
According to PCWorld, big tech companies like Yahoo!, Facebook and Google have been encrypting the information traveling through their data centers for years. It's likely that more and more data centers, from colocation providers to in-house setups, will begin to encrypt their data more aggressively as security concerns take center stage. Starting your encryption process sooner than later will put your facility in a better position to fend off an attack.

Perle's wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.