For the longest time, or as far as I can remember, the holy grail of all networking platforms has been the need for a single pane of glass, that single source of all information that you would need to be most effective.

So, what is a single pane of glass?   

If you take it at face value, it simply means a window that consists of a single square frame through which you can peek and get a panoramic view of what you are looking at. I don’t know how this term came to be, but it may be referring to the ability to look at a computer screen and get a snapshot view of everything such that you will not need to look elsewhere. Simpler said than done. The single pane of glass is not a myth, rather, it is an unobtainable objective whose value may have been over-hyped in order to differentiate from the rest. It is no different in Cybersecurity.

There is a lot of talk in the cybersecurity world about a single pane of glass approach, which can often be misleading. It leads us to believe that the customers are looking for a single window or view to be able to visualize and understand the state of their cybersecurity posture at any given point where visualizations and metrics and other interesting insights will help them elevate and improve their cybersecurity posture. This is not entirely true.

With the number of different solutions used by companies to accomplish multiple tasks and manage different networks on the rise, it is impossible to have a master single pane of glass for everything, nor do I believe it is expected. What is expected that there are multiple views that tell the right story to the right audience, which means multiple (Read more...)