Zscaler’s Patrick Perry: DoD Should Shift Focus to Data Security

Patrick Perry, director of emerging technology for federal DOD/IC at Zscaler, wrote in a commentary published Tuesday on Defense Systems that the Department of Defense should change its focus from network security to data security to better manage large data volumes and increasing bandwidth requirements.

Perry discussed the steps DoD should take to adopt a cloud security-as-a-service platform.

“The first step is decoupling the required security from the hardware and software that houses it,” he wrote. “Second, agencies must move the security apparatus inline to the destination. Finally, agencies can innovate by rebuilding all necessary security requirements into a common x86 architecture.”

Perry called on the Pentagon to consider a cloud-based distributed architecture that allows the department to improve user experience and maintain its security posture. DoD should also understand the difference between “cloud native” and “lift and shift” approaches.

“A true cloud-based architecture will provide a unified flow of logging analytics, scale to meet ever-growing demand, maintain broad uninterrupted access and decouple the unnecessary burden of maintaining hardware/software/firmware — all while reducing costs through an as-a-service platform,” Perry wrote.

He said DoD agencies should consider adopting a cloud native as-a-service platform “that is inherently designed for zero-trust architecture to provide security for personally owned applications in the cloud or on-premise.”