EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A leading client in the agriculture equipment, financing, insurance, milling and feed industries required a better way to monitor and report their security environment. In an industry that literally adapts to the shifting seasons, it was impractical to wait for days to gather and verify server and workstation data around domain activity, security features and compliance.
Even though the client operates a multi-vendor technology stack that serves several business units, they gained near real-time insight and significant time-saving efficiencies by deploying Encore, a security platform that aggregates their security stacks into one reporting dashboard.
Encore works like a charm to bring all of that information together. It's the policeman policing the rest of the environment."
- CUSTOMER (Technology Manager)
THE CHALLENGE
Encore’s customer is a leading provider of agriculture goods and services, spanning from equipment and feeds to financial and insurance products. They operate in a dynamic market where seasonal changes - not only the four seasons but also wet and dry periods - require them to be flexible and adaptable. To achieve this, the customer leverages digital technology to improve business performance.
Yet their multi-faceted, multi-vendor environment posed problems for accurate security reporting. The customer's IT operations teams relied on systems data provided through a multitude of different software agents on servers and workstations.
These created painful barriers: two people, working full-time, collected and collated status data manually into spreadsheets. The data had to be verified before use, and yet often arrived too late to support the customer's agile and dynamic environment. In theory, the customer should be able to trust the data from their various security tools. However, systems requiring an agent on every device couldn’t show where they were missing coverage, making it harder to verify the data.
THE SOLUTION
The customer required an independent and agnostic tool to collect and display critical security information such as security control coverage, domain status, patching and tool compliance. They also required a solutions team that could integrate and configure the reporting solution with different business systems.
Encore, a security platform that integrates their security stacks into one simple reporting interface, was the ideal solution. Leveraging Encore’s ease of onboarding, we quickly connected to the client’s security stack, including endpoint detection and response, email security, patch management, firewall and Active Directory.
The [Encore] team jumped at adding additional functionality. They got the configurations and customisations done within one to two weeks. We loved that enthusiasm and professionalism."
- CUSTOMER (Infrastructure and Operations Manager)
THE RESULTS
Encore’s agriculture services customer gained advantages in two significant areas.
Previously, they relied on a contractually agreed schedule with a service provider to deliver all the source data, which then needed to be verified and analysed to present in reports. This process could take as many as five working days - by which time the reports were already inaccurate due to changes in the environment. Encore enabled the transition from a retrospective view of data to near real-time visibility.
Encore's agentless design is the second advantage. Unlike tools reliant on agents to gain visibility, Encore draws device data from the disparate security tools, correlates that information and provides a comprehensive view across the entire estate. Encore also spots often-overlooked problems, such as gaps in domain assignments and system configurations.
By leveraging Encore, the customer has a single version of their security truth that they regard as their primary source.
Encore is a neutral tool that doesn't have an agent on a server. We can trust the values that are in there. If I need to investigate something, that's the source where I start."
- CUSTOMER (Datacenter Manager)
The customer's environment demonstrates how important yet cumbersome it can be to create accurate reporting from complex IT environments. We're thrilled that Encore is the solution that creates trust in what the data tells them."
- Encore