Introduction
Techfite is a medical technology company based in Houston, Texas, near the Johnson Space Center. The organization partners with NASA to produce medical devices specifically for the space program. Currently, the company seeks to collaborate with international agencies, which implies the need to process, store and transfer more data. This aspect also touches upon the difficulties of ensuring the security of information. One of the primary tasks is to improve the quality of log scanning for identifying intrusion signature patterns. Techfite currently uses manual log scanning, which only achieves a 30% success rate. The company needs to scan 10,000 logs per week, and during the collaboration, this figure will increase significantly. Additionally, the company has only 4 terabytes of log storage capacity, which is not enough for the future. These factors imply that the scan quality will become even lower, which poses a threat to data security. Thus, Techfite needs to find emerging technology that not only reviews log files but also stores them.
Emerging Technology Solution
In this case, the company needs to choose a solution that will automate the process of analyzing logs, as well as provide data storage. The most suitable solutions appear to be applications that integrate cloud storage technology. This approach will allow Techfite to eliminate the need to organize physical storage spaces. The most promising and suitable app is Logentries provided by Rapid, which provides log analytics and management (The fastest way to analyze, n.d). This solution offers the ability to structure and automatically monitor data. Additionally, Logentries allows for real-time monitoring of potential threats and anomalies, which also partially meets the company’s threat detection needs.
Most importantly, the solution offers data security monitoring, specifically what data leaves the warehouse. Additionally, the application uses TLS encryption to protect data, which is extremely important in cooperation with international agencies. This technology also makes the solution emerging, as data encryption protects information from hacker attacks and disclosure. The cloud storage technology of log data offered by the application also allows offloading of the company’s storage. Effective analytics and data reviewing help you sort and structure data to optimize analytics and storage. An additional advantage of the solution is the ability to integrate other programs and platforms used by the company. In particular, it is possible to configure team access for fast and secure distribution of data among project teams. This feature is especially important when international agencies work together.
Various companies use this solution to achieve different log analytics and optimization tasks. For example, Wrapp successfully utilizes an application to collect, and centralize data and make it easier to access (Use cases, n.d). Riffstation uses the application to identify problems as well as potential threats. The platform is especially useful for quick notification of violations in the operation of logs and minimization of security risks, as DeltaOne Solutions notes (Use cases, n.d). AWS (Amazon Web Services) successfully uses Logentries for security monitoring, as well as notification and highlighting of security processes. Thus, this solution is used by both small and large companies to optimize data analytics and ensure their security. This allows one to exclude manual review of data, minimize errors, and eliminate potential threats in time.
When choosing solutions for a company, it is important to evaluate the long-term perspective of the technology development, not focusing on its initial expectations from it. Gartner’s Hype Cycle describes emerging technologies development “from over-enthusiasm through a period of disillusionment to an eventual understanding of the technology’s relevance and role in a market domain” (Bresciani & Eppler, 2008, p. 12). The Magic Quadrant is a matrix of service provider and vendor information (Bresciani & Eppler, 2008). This matrix helps to assess the expectations of the technology in the market and its current position.
This tool categorizes service representatives into four categories: challengers, leaders, niche players, and visionaries. Depending on the characteristics of the vendor, the quadrant shows “the ability of the vendor to provide services concerning competitors, and what expect in the future” (Bresciani & Eppler, 2008, p. 3). In this respect, Logentries are located rather in the visionary quadrant, as they have a clear vision but may have few resources. In this situation, the service representative needs the support of partners and customers to ensure the high-quality work of the solution. In the future, with a sufficient amount of resources, this application may enter the leader’s quadrant.
Logentries uses cloud technology and data encryption techniques, making it emerging. Currently, these approaches are only being improved and need to be improved, but they are extremely promising. It is especially valuable that these technologies make it possible to automate the analysis of logs, as well as to ensure secure data transfer. In addition, the solution allows you to automate the process of targeting potential threats in the logs, which assumes the presence of artificial intelligence for their analysis.
Adoption Process
The implementation of the solution involves several steps according to the STREET Process. At the scoping stage, it is necessary to determine what business problems the technology should solve and what share of risk the company allows. Techfite needs to ensure secure analysis, storage, and transmission of data, and risks must be minimized. In this case, the priority is to reject the manual analysis of logs to exclude the possibility of threats. At the tracking stage, the company identifies the required emerging technology, taking into account its maturity and potential applications. For Techlite, the proposed solution is acceptable, as it is successfully used by other companies and can perform the necessary tasks. At the rank stage, the proposed solution is compared with other similar offers on the market. Within the framework of this case, Logentries offers a complete range of essential functions for the company.
At the evaluation stage, the company evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of potential solutions and decides to move on with one of them. For Techlite, Logentries offers all the features it needs and also provides secure data transfers that even exceed their immediate needs. This application can become the basis for the company’s log management activities. In the evangelizing stage, it is important to overcome structural resistance to adopt a new solution. In particular, the company needs to articulate the importance of the application for the members of the IT department and ensure a comfortable interaction with the new platform. At the transfer stage, Techlite must ensure that IT specialists are trained to work effectively with the program. In particular, it should work closely with the product provider to ensure knowledge and skills transfer.
Technology Impact
A positive impact of using the solution for a company is a decrease in the workload on IT specialists, as well as an increase in the efficiency of log management. In the long term, this will provide Techlite with more resources to develop and improve existing processes. On the other hand, the limited number of programs to integrate with the application may be a negative aspect, which may require Techlite to purchase additional products. In general, this can require significant changes to the data structure and logs, depending on the resources. To mitigate this negative Teclite effect, it is important to develop an infrastructure plan for log management initially. It is necessary to outline all the available solutions and how they interact to ensure the smooth operation of the structure.
Technology Comparison
The Logentries solution was chosen, the main advantages of which are the ability to analyze logs and the use of cloud storage automatically. The disadvantages of the solution are the insufficiently reliable financial position of the service provider, as well as restrictions on the integration of other products. An alternative solution can be Retrace, the main advantages of which are low cost and a combination of log analysis and error identification. The disadvantages of this solution, which do not allow the company to choose it, are the lack of functions for secure data transmission, as well as the impossibility of team access to data.
Adoption Metrics
The test period for evaluating the effectiveness of the solution should be 30 days. During this time, the company should evaluate the level of success of the analysis of logs, the number of scanned logs, as well as the sufficiency of volumes for storing data. In case of successful implementation, the success rate in identifying intrusion signature patterns should be 90%, and the number of scans should rise to 50,000 log files.
References
Bresciani, S., & Eppler, M. J. (2008). Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and Hype Cycle. Collaboration Knowledge Visualization Case Study Series, (2), 1-20. Web.
The fastest way to analyze your log data. (n. d). Logentries. Web.
Use cases. (n.d). Logentries. Web.