Before working for FireMon, I was a cybersecurity professional at a Fortune 500 where I inherited a lot of firewalls with a lot of rules. Complexity was king, and chaos reigned, but implementing FireMon made all the difference in managing our network.

While in the trenches, I was always looking to address the “3 Cs”— change, compliance, and clean up. Our network was always changing, which meant making sure these changes were secure, and didn’t break compliance while also making sure to clean up old firewall rules and access permissions. Addressing the 3Cs and enabling the business required complete visibility and the right tools to manage my network.

Plugging in FireMon made all the difference for network visibility and management as I could see how and why firewall rules were configured, the consequences of any change, and what they meant for our compliance and security posture. The visibility I got from FireMon took the guesswork out of changes and helped us reduce our attack surface.

As a cybersecurity professional, it’s easy to get the nickname “Dr. No” because you’re erring on the side of caution and sometimes being a barrier to innovation—you tend to limit access for new applications and services because you don’t want to guess at the consequences.

But when you have full visibility of your network, you can support the business. Speed and security no longer need to be enemies. You can make faster, more secure changes and be compliant at the same time. There doesn’t have to be a gap between delivering business opportunities that drive competitive advantage and managing security risk.

With FireMon, the modern enterprise network can grow in line with an agile, responsive business. It’s a differentiator that supports both security and innovation.