Leading Telecommunications Operator

Need for scalable and fully-functional database activity monitoring solution

Türkiye is in the relatively unique position where online content providers, including telecommunications operators, are required by law to keep customer data logs for two years. During this period, they need to report on user activity when asked by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), the main entity leading 5G efforts in Türkiye. At the same time, the telecommunications operators are growing and diversifying into ecommerce. This requires infrastructure scalability, which is where the main challenge lies for this organisation, according to its Head of Cybersecurity: “We are the first integrated telecommunications operator, providing service to more than 50 million subscribers in various fields, primarily in fixed access lines, broadband, TV, and mobile. To comply with data privacy regulations, we used a database activity monitoring tool, but this was not meeting our growth requirements. The solution needed a separate security information and event management (SIEM) solution to link to so that data could be correlated for more effective anomaly detection. This model was resource-heavy and expensive. It was difficult to budget for as well with different elements raising unexpected costs. The vendor was not open to our requests for enhancements and development, and we wanted to look for an alternative.”

Detailed POC to test voltage database activity monitoring to the max

Kafein Technology Solutions is a trusted partner in the organisation’s application development division. Even though there was no direct involvement from application development in this project, the data security operations teams who were involved were aware of Kafein’s stellar reputation and included the Kafein team in the discussions. As an experienced user of database activity monitoring technology, the client team already had an in-depth understanding of what to look for in a new solution. They wanted real-time visibility into database activities, with integrated event correlation, so that potential security threats can be promptly detected and addressed, and costs can be easily predicted.

Baki Aktürk, Director of Sales and Business Development at Kafein, comments: “The client team looked at an alternative database activity monitoring solution but found the cost of switching to this to be prohibitive. We had worked with Micro Focus (now OpenText) and Voltage Database Activity Monitoring (VDAM) with other clients and felt it would be a great option in this scenario, where data security posture improvement is important. The client agreed and we started a comprehensive proof-of-concept (POC) so that the team could fully appreciate VDAM’s capabilities. The technically detailed POC lasted nearly a year with Micro Focus (now OpenText) and Kafein showing great expertise and solution functionality to reassure the client that we could meet all requirements. We were pleased to receive the go-ahead for the VDAM implementation.”

Because VDAM meets all our requirements in a single solution, we can save over 50 percent when we calculate our total cost of ownership (TCO), which is an additional, unexpected, bonus.

Single solution to manage monitoring 10,000+ databases across 1,000 servers

VDAM helps organisations to ensure they meet security and data privacy requirements by continuously monitoring and auditing database activities. As it includes full event correlation and anomaly detection as standard, VDAM provides a comprehensive record of all interactions with any of the more than 20,000 databases across nearly 1,000 database servers in use in the organisation. This allows security teams to reconstruct events, trace the origin of the incident, and identify the extent of the impact. This single solution monitors, correlates, and alerts on database activity in real or near-real time across multiple, heterogenous platforms. Custom alerts can be set up to ensure that policy violations are flagged and prevented.

Following the successful POC, the Kafein and client teams collaborated to implement VDAM on a varied database landscape, including Hadoop, CassandraDB, PostgreSQL, MsSQL, MySQL, Oracle, DB2, MongoDB, SAP4Hana, and others. Aktürk comments: “Having a single solution in VDAM without the need for any other third-party tools is a major win for this client and a big advantage compared to the previous solution. They also particularly appreciated our flexibility. We created many custom reports in VDAM that integrate client-specified rules, correlation, and alerts. This helps the client’s cybersecurity teams to respond swiftly and clearly to any incidents, cutting out the noise that can be created when alerts are not targeted.”

We created many custom reports in VDAM that integrate specified rules, correlation, and alerts. This helps the client’s cybersecurity teams to respond swiftly and clearly to any incidents, cutting out the noise that can be created when alerts are not targeted.

Significant performance improvement and 50% TCO saving

The client can identify and address performance bottlenecks by analysing database activity, optimising resource utilisation, and enhancing overall system efficiency, improving application performance and user experience. The client has noticed a marked performance improvement because of these measures. Database agents on average only use around two percent CPU of the database server landscape, leaving plenty of capacity for database interactions with essential applications.

The Head of Cybersecurity concludes: “Our move to VDAM was a serious undertaking, but we are very pleased with the results. With Kafein’s expert consulting support, it has given us a high-performance and regulation-compliant solution that provides the event correlation to support our cybersecurity teams in their important work to protect our customer data against cyberattacks. Because VDAM meets all our requirements in a single solution, we can save over 50 percent when we calculate our total cost of ownership (TCO), which is an additional, unexpected, bonus.”