As organizations are rapidly moving to the cloud to leverage the cloud advantage, services are also moving to the cloud, including cybersecurity solutions such as SIEM. In fact, SIEM as a Service is rapidly gaining momentum as an alternative to traditional, on-premises SIEM solutions. In its 10 Questions to Answer Before Adopting a SaaS SIEM report, Gartner had predicted that by 2023, 80% of SIEM solutions will have capabilities that are delivered via the cloud.
But what is cloud SIEM, and how is it different from on-premises SIEM? How do organizations benefit from deploying it? This blog aims to answer these questions.
What is a cloud SIEM solution?
A cloud SIEM solution, also known as cloud-native SIEM, is a SIEM solution hosted in the cloud. Much like traditional SIEM, it can perform all the SIEM functions such as managing and storing logs, monitoring network traffic, detecting and resolving cybersecurity incidents, and proving compliance—but all from the cloud. Compared to on-premises SIEM solutions, cloud SIEM solutions offer greater flexibility, ease-of-access, and faster time to value when managing cybersecurity and compliance across both your on-premises and cloud environments.
Here are five advantages of a cloud SIEM solution over an on-premises SIEM solution that will help you assess if cloud SIEM can meet your organization’s requirements.
1. Quick and easy to get started with
Did you know that over 40% of SIEM deployments* take more than three months to complete?
One of the biggest advantages of a cloud SIEM solution across all organizations is the quicker set up. Without the need for shipment, installation, and complex configuration processes, organizations can start seeing value for cloud SIEM sooner than for traditional SIEM.
With ManageEngine’s Log360 Cloud, all you need to do is create an account and configure agents on your network devices. If you wish to monitor your AWS environment, you need to set up a cloud account. That’s it!
2. On-premises SIEM solutions require high-end hardware resources, unlike cloud SIEM solutions
SIEM solutions are resource-intensive, meaning they need high amounts of functional and storage memory. Organizations will have to invest in high-end machines to host an on-premises SIEM solution to ensure that the host machine can handle the SIEM operations. While this might not be a problem for larger organizations, for smaller organizations on a limited cybersecurity budget, this could be a major impediment in SIEM deployment.
A cloud SIEM solution addresses this issue by hosting the solution in the cloud. The user only has to pay for the log storage.
3. You can scale network architecture without losing time or worrying about log volume
Since a SIEM solution functions by collecting log data from the network, it will be handling large volumes of log data on a daily basis. With an on-premises solution, it’s hard to accommodate sudden spikes in log volumes. This becomes an even bigger problem when your organization is considering expansion.
The scalability and elasticity of cloud-native solutions extends to cloud SIEM as well. With a cloud SIEM solution, organizations need not worry about scaling up to meet huge log volume requirements on time. With quick deployment and flexible data plans, you can log as much or as little as you need to, without losing any time.
4. Retaining log data is more secure and cost-effective
Logs need to be stored as mandated by privacy laws and regulations. This requires organizations to ensure log retention for as long as necessary in a secure, tamper-proof manner. A cloud SIEM solution can do this cost-effectively. Log360 Cloud, for example, lets you archive older logs and moves them to compressed cold storage to ensure they’re tamper-proof and that you’re using your storage space effectively.
5. Staying current with the latest updates is much easier
Cloud SIEM solutions reduce the headache of having to deal with constant updates and patches to the product since cloud deployments are always up to date. This way, your team will have more time to focus on more important work such as monitoring your network for threats rather than spending time on SIEM maintenance and updates. That’ll be taken care of by the platform provider.
Leverage these cloud-native advantages using ManageEngine’s cloud SIEM solution, Log360 Cloud. With capabilities such as security analytics, AWS monitoring, cloud app monitoring, incident management, threat analytics, rule-based attack detection, and compliance management, Log360 Cloud helps you stay on top of your cybersecurity and compliance game from the cloud. Sign up to access your free trial right away.
