Aviatrix Blog 
Last week in New York City, Aviatrix had its first Customer Advisory Council to gather customers to share their experiences and ask their toughest questions. Strategic customers and Cloud Networking Heroes were able to learn more about the cloud network security landscape, preview Aviatrix’s roadmap, and discuss critical topics like app modernization and regulatory pressure.
What We Learned:
- How advanced persistent threats (APTs), app modernization, and regulatory pressure are changing industry landscape
- Upcoming features and enhancements on the Aviatrix product roadmap
- Feedback and suggestions from Aviatrix customers on how we can serve them better
The Top Three Trends Shaping Cloud Strategy
Benson George, an Aviatrix Senior Principal Product Marketing, presented the top three trends shaping cloud strategy.
APTs (advanced persistent threats) and cloud breaches
Benson gave an overview of the growing threat of APTs: well-resourced, highly skilled cyber adversaries that maintain long-term access to a targeted system. He covered well-known tactics of APTs, such as zero-day exploits and lateral movement, and the sponsor of many powerful APTs, China.
The conversation expanded to the recent acquisition of Wiz by Google, its security implications, and the importance of using controls like multi-factor authentication (MFA) to prevent unauthorized access to systems.
Read more about the Salt Typhoon APT and another threat, Medusa ransomware.
2. App modernization
Benson explained the growing push for app modernization. Many organizations are migrating from traditional, slow, monolithic applications and toward cloud-native architectures built around Kubernetes, containers, and microservices. This effort helps them deploy faster, innovate better, and achieve greater agility.
But in this push for speed, ease-of-use, and efficiency, security often gets left behind. Kubernetes deployments especially can compromise security. To help with this modernization effort, the Aviatrix Kubernetes Firewall extends security and policy enforcement across multicloud and hybrid environments, complementing other security measures like CNI plugins and service meshes to fortify your network.
The group discussed some of their challenges with Kubernetes, including the grim reality of IP exhaustion and the friction of complicated, lengthy approval cycles between DevOps and security.
The key takeaway? Modernization without security creates real business, financial, and reputational risk.
Read more about how Aviatrix helped AB inBev boost hybrid infrastructure knowledge and control, including tackling the challenge of IP exhaustion.
3. Growing regulatory pressure
Industry-shaking security incidents like Salt Typhoon push regulators to update compliance standards – and companies have to update their policies or face vulnerabilities and legal consequences. Benson covered the reaction cycle from a typical data breach to the regulatory response and the updated zero trust guidelines.
Customers present talked more about the need for a multi-layered approach to compliance, enforcement as key, and the crippling problem of managing network segmentation and network sprawl.
In summary: Zero Trust principles are no longer optional. Security risk is business risk, so consider how you can invest in keeping your network secure, reliable, and resilient.
Coming Innovation: The Aviatrix Cloud Network Security Platform Roadmap
Rajesh Kumar Easwaramoorthy, Director of Product Management, gave customers a privileged preview of the Aviatrix roadmap. This session was for live attendees only, but it included features and enhancements for increasingly granular cloud network security, visibility, and agility. Customers at the meeting asked questions, offered feedback, and discussed the implications of upcoming Aviatrix announcements.
We closed out our New York City session by collecting feedback, noting how future Advisory Councils can be improved upon, and a handshake agreeing to continue to strengthen relationships over time.
Curious about joining a future Aviatrix Advisory Council? Reach out to [email protected] to join an upcoming Council in a city near you.