As the enterprise irons out existing cybersecurity kinks, one topic that continues to split opinion is choosing between versatile integrated platforms and purpose-built, best-of-breed solutions.

“I think the point is that if you build out a platform, then you don’t need to be best-of-breed,” said Zeus Kerravala (pictured), founder and principal analyst at ZK Research. “If you’re trying to best-of-breed everywhere, you get less than effective threat protection. The platform strategy actually gives you best-in-class threat protection without being best-of-breed everywhere.”

Kerravala spoke with theCUBE industry analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante at the RSA Conference, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed insights around cybersecurity solutions delivery. (* Disclosure below.)

Security has evolved into an analytics game

Data continues to redefine how organizations approach various processes, and cybersecurity is the latest in that list. Securing infrastructures at the enterprise scale requires sifting through tons of multipoint data to find (often minuscule) disparities, and the best-of-breed approach can often create inconsistencies in reporting, according to Kerravala.

“You have to keep security policies up to date,” he said. “Some systems pool while some use telemetry, and so you could end up with this inconsistent data. It’s about analyzing the data that you have to be able to find those needles in the stack of needles. If you’re working off your own data set and everything is consistent, you can do that better than if you’re trying to cobble together data sets from multiple vendors.”

The RSA Conference is a security-focused show, and part of its discourse is laying projections for the cybersecurity space going forward. In that regard, Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are two of the strongest candidates, according to Kerravala.

“I like [Palo Alto Networks] a lot,” he explained. “I think their platform strategy is outstanding. The way they can build products, as well as buy products and integrate them quickly, makes a lot of sense. Cisco’s also an interesting security company. If network telemetry is a big part of security and threat identification, who has more network telemetry than them?”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RSA Conference:

(* Disclosure: This is an unsponsored editorial segment. However, theCUBE is a paid media partner for the RSA Conference. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE