Updated July 23, 2023

Centralized policy management is the practice of managing access policies from a single, centralized location. It typically provides a web-based interface for administrators to create, modify, and distribute policies across the organization. Typically, policies are created for individual applications or circumstances and are applied in silos. This makes it very difficult to consistently enforce policies across applications and geographies. With centralized policy management, you can create a single policy that spans all applications, all while maintaining visibility and control.

The centralized policy management system plays a crucial role in implementing a Zero-Trust security posture by centralizing access policies and automating policy enforcement. Organizations can ensure consistent and effective security measures and be provided with a single location for administrators to manage all access policies, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring consistency in the enforcement of security policies. Also, it simplifies regulatory compliance efforts by aligning policies with industry regulations and enabling consistent enforcement, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties. By streamlining policy administration, rapid deployment and updates can be achieved, allowing organizations to adapt to emerging threats and regulatory changes promptly. Centralized policy management also facilitates auditing and reporting, further aiding in compliance audits and risk assessments. Finally, it provides scalability, enabling efficient policy management across distributed infrastructures as enterprises grow. Overall, centralized policy management plays a vital role in establishing a secure, compliant, and efficient operational environment for enterprises.

NextLabs’ CloudAz is a unified policy platform solution with real-time enforcement that centralizes administration and employs a zero-trust principle to enforce data-centric security measures and compliance in real time, by automating least privilege access and securing applications and data.

CloudAz gives organizations the ability to author policies using natural language statements, making it easy for business users to create their own policies without IT’s help. Once the policies are authored, they can be centrally managed and dynamically applied across applications and systems in real-time, using attribute-based access control (ABAC) to determine if access should be granted. As the business environment and requirements change, policies can be updated quickly and easily, and automatically enforced — even when allowing access to partners and other third parties. For example, a policy that determines which accounts a user can view in your CRM system can also control what the user can view in SharePoint.

CloudAz can be deployed anywhere, be it on-premises, in a private cloud, or as a SaaS. CloudAz runs natively on AWS, Azure, OpenShift and Google Cloud. With support for multiple deployment models, it gives you the freedom to choose the right cloud deployment strategy, whether it is hybrid or multi-cloud. With the ability to create new instances across multiple landscapes – set up development, test, and production environments can be done quickly. Policies can be transported between cloud and on-premises deployments, ensuring consistent policy enforcement across all environments.

• Unify & Modernize IT -Streamline IT infrastructure, unify application and business services under a shared services model, expedite system consolidation and eliminate security silos, accelerate cloud adoption without compromising security coverage and total cost of ownership.

• Improve Business Agility – Accelerate time to market and enhance competitive advantage through automation and simplified change management; easily incorporate new business models without code changes and application downtime.

• Enhance Cybersecurity – Prevent data leakage and cyber-attacks by automating least privilege access to eliminate implicit trust and safeguard data across business-critical applications (e.g. SAP, Siemens, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Oracle), whether the data is at rest or on the move.

• Increase Collaboration – Safeguard trade secrets and sensitive information to ensure secure data sharing and accelerate collaboration through central access control and data segregation policies. Ensure Compliance Ensure compliance with regulations such as GDPR, ITAR, SOX and EH&S, simplify audit processes with centralized logging and reporting of all data access activity and authorization decisions.

For more information on CloudAz, read our brochure.