Despite organizations’ most heroic efforts to battle cloud sprawl, maintaining visibility and consistency across multiple accounts and Kubernetes clusters has only become increasingly challenging over time.
Often, organizations struggle to track which third-party services are connected to their cloud infrastructure, leading to potential security gaps, unnecessary costs, and operational inefficiencies.
Enter Connected Services: a powerful new capability from Firefly that serves as the command center for visibility into all your cloud integrations.
The Integration Visibility Challenge, Solved
Modern cloud infrastructure relies heavily on third-party integrations, from security tools and FinOps platforms to backup solutions and monitoring services. However, as organizations grow their cloud presence across multiple accounts and clusters, maintaining consistency in these integrations becomes increasingly complex. Security teams need to ensure their CSPM solutions are deployed universally, FinOps teams must verify billing data collection across all accounts, and platform teams need to track Kubernetes applications across clusters.
Without proper visibility, organizations face several critical challenges:
- Security blind spots where critical security tools might be missing from certain accounts
- Inconsistent cost monitoring due to incomplete FinOps tool deployment
- Redundant or unnecessary service connections driving up costs
- Operational inefficiencies from manual auditing of service connections
- Compliance risks from unauthorized or unmonitored service integrations
Connected Services addresses these challenges by providing a comprehensive, centralized view of all third-party service connections across your cloud infrastructure.
Introducing Connected Services: Your Integration Command Center
So, how does it work? Connected Services offers two primary views:
Cloud Account Integration View
The Cloud Account Integration View provides a clear, consolidated dashboard of the third-party services connected to each of your cloud accounts, and makes it simple to:
- Identify accounts missing critical security, monitoring, or compliance tools
- Spot unauthorized or unexpected service connections
- Ensure consistent deployment of essential services across your organization
- Track integration patterns across different business units or environments
Kubernetes Application View
The Kubernetes Application View focuses on third-party applications deployed across your Kubernetes clusters, enabling teams to:
- Compare application deployments across different clusters
- Identify missing or excess applications in specific clusters
- Ensure standardization of essential services across your Kubernetes environment
- Track version consistency of deployed applications
What Does This Mean for Your Cloud Teams?
The Connected Services dashboard empowers diverse teams—from Security and FinOps to Platform and Resilience—with real-time visibility into critical tool deployments, which means more proactive management, consistency, and comprehensive coverage across cloud accounts and Kubernetes clusters.
For Security Teams
Security professionals can now easily verify that critical security tools are deployed consistently across all cloud accounts. The Connected Services dashboard immediately highlights any accounts lacking essential security integrations, enabling proactive remediation before vulnerabilities can be exploited.
For FinOps Teams
FinOps practitioners gain immediate visibility into the deployment status of cost management and billing tools across their cloud infrastructure. This ensures comprehensive cost data collection and helps identify potentially unnecessary service subscriptions that may be driving up cloud costs.
For Platform Teams
Platform engineers can maintain consistency across Kubernetes clusters by quickly identifying discrepancies in deployed applications. This visibility helps ensure that all clusters have the necessary monitoring, logging, and operational tools in place.
For Resilience Teams
Backup and disaster recovery teams can verify that data protection services are properly connected across all critical accounts and clusters, ensuring comprehensive coverage of business continuity measures.
Across these teams, Connected Services provides key capabilities including:
Comprehensive Visibility
- Full view of all connected third-party services across cloud accounts
- Detailed mapping of Kubernetes applications across clusters
- Clear identification of integration patterns and inconsistencies
Difference Detection
- Automated comparison of service connections between accounts
- Highlight missing or excess services across environments
- Easy identification of configuration drift between clusters
Alerting and Reporting
- Customizable alerts for missing critical services
- Regular reports on integration status and changes
- Notification system for unauthorized service connections
To make the most of Connected Services with Firefly, we recommend you:
- Establish a routine review of your Connected Services dashboard to ensure ongoing alignment with your organization's security and operational requirements.
- Define and document the expected set of third-party integrations for different account types and cluster profiles.
- Set up alerts for critical service disconnections or unauthorized connections to enable rapid response to integration issues.
- Use the Connected Services dashboard as a collaboration tool between security, operations, and platform teams to maintain integration consistency.
And that’s just the foundation. Looking ahead, organizations can build on these capabilities for more sophisticated governance and automation workflows around their service integrations.
Note: Connected Services is available now as part of the Firefly platform. Existing customers can access this new capability immediately through their dashboard, while new customers can contact Firefly to learn more about how Connected Services can help ensure consistency across their cloud infrastructure.
