We’re taking another step forward in our mission to help you achieve continuous security and compliance by providing IBM-managed collectors.
With the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center, you can automate the validation of your resource configurations, which reduces the costs and stress that your organization manages as part of a compliance audit. To complete the validation, the Security and Compliance Center uses what is known as a collector to gather information about your configurations. Previously, the installation and management of the collector was the full responsibility of the customer. Now, in addition to allowing you to manage your own collector, we’re excited to introduce IBM-managed collectors.
What is a collector?
A collector is a crucial piece of the solution that is used to gather configuration information about your resources and then validate it against your specified security standards. When you work with collectors, you can either manage the lifecycle yourself, or you can have IBM manage it for you.
IBM-managed collectors
When you choose to have IBM manage your collector, it is installed on IBM infrastructure. IBM is responsible for the installation and management for the lifecycle of the collector. This option gives you the ability to focus on just the health and security of your resources. With an IBM-managed collector, you can start monitoring the status of your current security and compliance posture in less than 30 minutes.
Customer-managed collectors
In some situations, an IBM-managed collector might not be possible. If your organization has policies regarding the ownership of infrastructure or specific security constraints, you can always continue to manage your own collector. If your organization chooses to manage your own collectors, you are responsible for the installation and management of the collector. You own the infrastructure and you have total control over where the collector is installed.
How do I get started?
If you’re already using the Security and Compliance Center to monitor your current posture, verify that you have the required permissions, navigate to the Security and Compliance Center UI > Settings > Collectors, and Create a new collector. Note: There can be one managed collector per account at a time. If you need to replace a collector, you can delete it and create a new one:
New to the Security and Compliance Center? Try walking through our step-by-step tutorial to set up posture monitoring.
Have questions or feedback?
Excellent! We’d love to hear from you. To send feedback, you can open a GitHub issue from a link at the top of any page in the documentation, open a support ticket, or reach out directly through email.
Have more questions about the Security and Compliance Center? Check out our introductory blog.