Why You Need a Control Plane for Machine Identity Management

Why You Need a Control Plane for Machine Identity Management brooke.crothers Thu, 06/16/2022 – 10:00 11 views Software is rapidly eating the world Every aspect of human life is influenced and changed by software applications, which are a type of machine—from visiting the doctor, to purchasing online, to accessing bank accounts, to flying on an airplane. Machines are like humans in that each one must have a unique identity. Also, like humans, machines must be authenticated to be trusted. Once authenticated using their identity, the machine can then be authorized to access data or resources. This is the essence of security: allowing access to that which is authorized and blocking access to that which is not.  Failure to manage machine identities can have critical consequences. Machine identities expire and systems fail. Machine identities are stolen and used in cyberattacks. We have created a world that relies on machines and society is damaged when machine identities fail. Complexity is increasing and causing massive problems  We are in the middle of an epochal change from data center centric to a modern cloud-native digital transformation. These 2 environments are required to work together for successful modernization. The orchestration required and precipitating complexity is staggering, which is motivating the creation of a new approach to reducing the complexity of managing machine identities. What has emerged is the need for a control plane for machine identity management. To learn more about how a control plane for machine identity management executes the specific tasks of machine identity management across the enterprise, read Jeff’s full blog.   Scott Carter Cloud Venafi CEO, Jeff Hudson, is the man behind the force that created the category of machine identity management. In fact, we can credit him with creating the concept of machine identities that has now become ubiquitous in security, analyst and IAM circles. Jeff recently posted a blog on Medium about how he sees the machine identity management market evolving over the coming months. In two words: control plane. I’ve summarized a few of the key ideas of the blog below. If that piques your interest, you can read the full version of Jeff’s blog.  TLS Machine Identity Management for Dummies – the FREE eBook! Off UTM Medium Resources UTM Source Blog UTM Campaign Recommended-Resources