ExtraHop demonstrates the extensibility of its wire data analytics platform

“As IT architectures grow increasingly complex and dynamic, one of the biggest challenges facing IT teams is simply knowing the right questions to ask,” said Bernd Harzog, analyst with The Virtualization Practice. “With these new modules, ExtraHop is providing IT organisations with a flexible, nimble platform to help determine the right questions, and quickly get to the right answers.”

“Today’s IT organisations face significant hurdles when it comes to performance, availability, and particularly security, an issue that is top of mind for many organisations in the wake of several recent high-profile breaches,” said Jesse Rothstein, CEO, ExtraHop. “Our customers have already gained crucial insights through analysing wire data in their complex IT environments. Now they can go one step further with our new modules, which leverage the extensibility of the ExtraHop platform and are available for free. ExtraHop makes it easy and cost-efficient for IT teams to maximise the power of our wire data analytics platform.”

The latest solution modules from ExtraHop are purpose-built to help IT teams ensure the security of their environment, while giving them the tools they need to optimise the end-user experience:
Cloud App Monitoring Module Shines a Light on Shadow IT
One of the biggest challenges IT departments have faced in recent years is the issue of shadow IT, with no meaningful way to oversee when and how employees are using business and consumer cloud applications. Knowing that they exist isn’t enough. With the ExtraHop Cloud App Monitoring module, IT organisations have the power to proactively tackle shadow IT. The Cloud App Monitoring module automatically discovers and shows end-user procured cloud apps running in the IT environment—including Salesforce, Google Docs, YouTube, Facebook, Dropbox, and more. With this new solution module from ExtraHop, IT teams can determine who is using what application, when, how extensively, and how frequently. The module includes the most commonly used cloud applications out of the box and is easily customisable and extensible to the specific demands of an individual organisation. ExtraHop’s Cloud App module is designed to leverage the collective intelligence of ExtraHop’s burgeoning user community where they can openly contribute to Cloud App definitions, continuously improving and evolving visibility into shadow IT. With the Cloud App module, IT teams gain the visibility they need to protect data and reduce risk for IT and the business at large.

WAN Optimization Analytics Module Enables IT to Maximize the Value of Optimization
The ExtraHop WAN Optimization Analytics module arms IT teams with the insight they need to comprehensively evaluate WAN optimization solutions and make their WAN optimization more efficient. Without insights from wire data, most IT organisations have little understanding of the traffic being accessed on their WAN at any given time, what the end user is experiencing, and if it can be optimized. As a result, many look for WAN optimization solutions without actually knowing whether or not, and in what capacity, optimization is needed. The ExtraHop WAN Optimization Analytics module enables IT teams to identify, down to the user level, what and how frequently applications and files are being accessed over the WAN and how they are performing. The module then correlates that information with network bandwidth consumption to give these organisations an accurate picture of how they should deploy WAN optimisation or how they could be using their existing WAN more effectively.

Security and Compliance Module Gives IT an Edge against Emerging Threats with Pervasive Visibility across Tiers
ExtraHop has also upgraded its popular Security and Compliance module to deliver pervasive, contextual monitoring specifically aimed at the detection of data breaches. As Target recently learned in the wake of its massive holiday data breach, reactive security solutions are rapidly becoming insufficient on their own. To adequately protect themselves, IT organisations are beginning to take the perspective that their systems have already been compromised, implementing a proactive approach to monitoring and aiming to understand normal and abnormal behaviour in the environment.
Powered by the ExtraHop Context and Correlation Engine, coupled with specialised security-focused trending and alerting, the ExtraHop Security and Compliance module provides continuous real-time monitoring of data exfiltration through DNS records, brute-force attacks against Active Directory, data leakage in VDI environments, file access and control, and anomalous database access attempts. The ExtraHop Security and Compliance module easily fits within an organisation’s existing security framework, seamlessly integrating with SIEM platforms and complementing log or machine data systems like VMware Log Insight. While machine data is limited to self-reported system event data, ExtraHop’s wire data analytics observes contextual behaviour across all tiers of IT environment. Together, these two data sources of IT visibility help to create a foundation for a robust security analytics architecture.