Discovery

The Discovery package analyzes observed network communications to determine what policy objects, network representations, and environmental context must exist within Illumio before policy can be safely and effectively developed.

The engagement focuses on reviewing inbound and outbound communications observed within the Illumio platform, identifying communication patterns that are relevant to future segmentation efforts, and documenting infrastructure elements that are not yet represented within the PCE. Discovery provides customers with a structured understanding of application communications, external dependencies, network complexity, cloud connectivity, branch-office communications, partner communications, internet exposure, and other traffic patterns that influence future policy design.

As part of the engagement, Illumio Professional Services teaches the customer the methodologies used to analyze traffic, identify trends, validate communication patterns, and determine required policy objects. The service includes creation of policy objects required to support future policy engineering activities and provides standards, governance recommendations, and operational guidance for ongoing object creation after the engagement concludes.

Discovery is intended to establish policy readiness. It does not attempt to analyze every communication path or completely model the customer environment. Instead, it provides a bounded analysis, creates priority policy objects, and delivers a documented path forward into Basic Policy, Ringfencing, Environmental Separation, and future segmentation services.

Package Dependencies

• Platform Foundation Deployment
• Labeling  

Strongly Recommended Packages

• Segmentation Strategy & Roadmap  

Technical Readiness

• Operational Illumio platform
• VEN-installed workloads paired and reporting
• Visibility data available
• Initial labeling completed
• Asset inventory available
• Network inventory available where applicable
• Access to traffic data and exports
• Access to object-management methods within Illumio  

Customer Readiness

• Designated project sponsor
• Primary technical contact
• Network stakeholders available
• Security stakeholders available
• Application stakeholders available
• Agreed Discovery scope
• Agreed workload population

Discovery Planning

• Review customer segmentation objectives.
• Confirm Discovery scope, priorities, and in-scope population.
• Review available metadata, inventory, and network information.
• Establish traffic-analysis priorities and review methodology.
• Confirm the approach for handling unidentified or disputed systems.

Customer Outcome

Customer and Illumio share an agreed Discovery scope, analysis method, and set of priorities aligned to the customer's segmentation objectives.

Traffic Analysis

• Analyze inbound and outbound communications to/from in-scope workloads.
• Review communication patterns between applications.
• Identify branch-office communications.
• Identify cloud infrastructure communications.
• Identify partner connectivity.
• Identify internet-facing communications.
• Review multicast and broadcast activity.
• Identify scanning, management, and network-discovery traffic patterns.
• Document legacy protocols, shared-services dependencies, and other network-complexity observations.
• Document communications requiring additional customer validation.

Customer Outcome

Customer gains a documented understanding of inbound and outbound communication patterns, external dependencies, and network complexity that will influence future segmentation policy design.

Policy Readiness Analysis

• Identify systems and networks requiring representation within the PCE.
• Identify candidate IP Lists. Identify candidate Unmanaged Workloads.
• Review application-boundary observations. Identify labeling, metadata, and ownership gaps affecting policy readiness.
• Document policy-design considerations for future segmentation activities.

Customer Outcome

Customer understands what must exist within the PCE, and what remains unresolved, before segmentation policy can be developed.

Policy Object Creation and Operationalization

• Define object naming standards, description standards, and documentation conventions.
• Create approved IP Lists.
• Create approved Unmanaged Workloads.
• Apply agreed naming, description, and documentation standards to created objects.
• Provide data templates for future object creation.
• Demonstrate manual and API-enabled object-management methods.
• Demonstrate supported bulk object-management techniques where applicable.
• Document object-governance recommendations.
• Document candidate objects not created due to missing information, customer decisions, or package limits.

Customer Outcome

Customer receives the policy objects required to support future policy development, the standards and templates used to create them, and the operational knowledge to continue object creation independently.

Discovery Findings and Handoff

• Demonstrate the traffic-analysis and data-extraction methods used during the engagement.
• Provide a documented summary of Discovery findings, including traffic observations, network-complexity findings, and policy-readiness findings.
• Provide a summary of created policy objects and applicable standards.
• Document unresolved items, ownership questions, and recommended customer follow-up.
• Document recommended next-step activities and readiness considerations for Basic Policy, Ringfencing, and future segmentation work.
• Review findings and recommendations with customer stakeholders.

Customer Outcome

Customer receives a documented Discovery record, governance standards, and a recommended path into future policy-development activities that can be executed independently.

The delivery schedule will be established at project initiation based on:

• Package size
• Environment complexity
• Traffic volume
• Number of applications
• Number of observed dependencies
• Stakeholder availability
• Customer review cycles

Delays in data availability, stakeholder participation, scope validation, or object approval may impact delivery timelines.

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