The risk of config drift is ever present. And when you consider that modern enterprises have incredibly complex and ever-changing networks with thousands of devices, from routers to firewalls to switches, running billions of lines of config, it’s easy to understand why. Networks are constantly being changed by people - who though well intentioned - make mistakes. A configuration change that accomplishes the immediate goal may take the network out of compliance, but how would anyone know?
If you’re like most of the complex IT shops we talk with, you probably don’t even have a current security matrix to store anywhere – file cabinet or data folder. The connectivity matrix is essentially the company security posture, but almost no one has a comprehensive way to visualize and easily understand the connectivity status between the various configured security policies (zone-to-zone policies).