Service providers (SPs) in Asia Pacific are especially concerned over their security infrastructure as they increasingly embrace adoption of new technologies, such as distributed clouds, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G, according to a new report from Juniper Networks and Ovum Research.
The report polled 51 IT decision makers from SPs across APAC, including in Singapore, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea and India. Data from this research was used together with data from an international survey of 100 decision makers from SPs globally, conducted by Heavy Reading.
Findings revealed that only one quarter of SPs surveyed are very satisfied with their existing security infrastructure, with the majority planning heavy investment into security over the next two years.
To better address the requirements of today and tomorrow, new architectures need to be adopted with security postures that are sufficiently agile to change alongside evolving requirements and without becoming a bottleneck to networking performance.
This means scaling up to handle increased capacity, while scaling out to accommodate fast increasing volumes of IoT endpoints and increased signalling and session demands of edge distribution.
“Service providers are rapidly moving to the cloud and adopting new technologies, such as IoT and 5G, which will redefine the way we live, work and play,” said Ang Thiam Guan, VP & GM for APAC at Juniper Networks.
“All of these are heavily dependent on the network, and enterprises are increasing spending on security to protect new and existing infrastructure,” said Ang.
He added that a more all-encompassing view of security, rather than focus on the perimeter, needed to be encourage
“The network itself should be seen as the first line of defence, especially as the scale, demands and usage patterns on infrastructure continue to evolve and grow,” Ang said.
The report also shows that rapidly growing adoption of new technologies, including distributed clouds, IoT and 5G, has introduced additional security susceptibilities, forcing SPs to scale up and scale out their security infrastructure to remain relevant and secure.
However, APAC SPs generally still feel they have some catching up to do in terms of security readiness, with overall findings from the region-wide survey revealing significant concerns.
Only 29% are very satisfied with their current firewall, and 65% will upgrade their firewall within the next year. Also, 61% plan to increase spending on firewall product and services over the next two years.
In terms of recommended risk mitigation investment going forward, areas to prioritise include improved intrusion detection, cloud security and upgraded firewalls, as well as architecture that allows for a unified view of security tools and networks.
