Supporting environmental research at scale
CNR-IMIOT is coordinating the development of ITINERIS HUB (Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructures System), in the environmental scientific domain. The hub provides a single gateway to the wide range of data, analytical tools, and cutting-edge facilities and services available through ITINERIS.
ITINERIS HUB demands a high-speed, resilient, and scalable network security infrastructure configured to combat every type of known and unknown threat. CNR-IMIOT needed to:
- Maximise cyber resilience: Prevent threats to research continuity from ransomware, cloud and application vulnerabilities, and evolving exploits deployed at machine speed.
- Optimise performance: Deliver high-performance access to data, services, and digital research resources for thousands of researchers and research professionals.
- Unify security: Align cloud, identity, and security into a single connected strategy, eliminating silos and enforcing intelligent identity controls.
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Simple, consistent security reduces complexity
CNR-IMIOT has built on its existing relationship with Palo Alto Networks for this new project, using a comprehensive, connected suite of next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and Unit 42®-powered Cloud-Delivered Security Services (CDSS) to deliver AI-powered network security across all ITINERIS users, apps, and devices.
By simplifying operations and consistently enforcing policies across the infrastructure hosting ITINERIS HUB, this unified platform approach secures the enterprise against evolving vectors, ensuring maximum visibility and best-in-class protection across the entire attack lifecycle.
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Safeguards trusted high availability research operations
The single security stack cuts through complexity, simplifying the infrastructure and delivering consistent security policies.
For example, AIOps harnesses big data from ITINERIS HUB operations to respond instantly to issues, and DNS Security uses real-time analysis and machine learning to block malicious domains.
By ensuring uninterrupted access to data and services, the platform supports multidisciplinary environmental research across atmospheric, marine, terrestrial, and geospheric domains. “CNR-IMIOT has increased resilience by 40% using the Palo Alto Networks platform,” says Ermann. “Everything is more predictable now.”
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Maximises security and data performance
CNR-IMIOT has increased data performance by 20% using the platform.
The Institute uses almost the entire suite of CDSS to automatically discover, monitor, and protect sensitive research and other data.
The platform also supports the delivery of Open Science services, enabling secure and reliable access to research data, metadata, digital services, and computing resources for a broad scientific community. This is a key requirement for ITINERIS HUB, which promotes the sharing and reuse of environmental research resources at national and international levels.
“This agility is crucial for large-scale, high-performance research data processing,” says Ermann.
Ermann is particularly impressed by the single-pass architecture. “We benefit from multiple additional security functions without compromising throughput or latency,” he says.
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Increases research agility
The platform also delivers more efficient incident response, reducing downtime and improving system reliability. For instance, WildFire automatically prevents unknown malware variants from hitting the ITINERIS HUB infrastructure.
The evidence is in the metrics: The mean time to detect (MTTD) has been cut by 60% and the mean time to resolve (MTTR) by 30%.
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Reduces security costs by 30%
Automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) all contribute to highly efficient security operations, collectively reducing security operating costs by 30%.
Helpdesk calls have dropped by 20%, and almost a third of the security team is now free to focus on strategic tasks rather than admin. Ermann comments, “We’re monitoring the traffic far more effectively now, which allows the team to proactively resolve incidents. Before, we were just firefighting.”
Looking ahead, Ermann and his team are evaluating the deployment of Prisma® Access and Cortex XSIAM® to further automate and streamline the end-to-end security processes. “Consolidating multiple tools into a unified platform not only advances our security posture, but also reduces costs and improves operational efficiency,” he says.
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