Security startup ProtectWise and software testing and visibility provider Ixia partnered to create an integrated product that helps enterprises monitor their public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.

ProtectWise will be integrating its security platform with Ixia’s visibility platform. As enterprises continue to move workloads to the cloud, they lose network packet visibility, and Ixia’s CloudLens aims to solve this. And ProtectWise’s platform provides automated threat detection.

The ProtectWise platform uses sensors throughout the network that can detect immediate attacks. It also keeps a record of attacks dating back for years. The data is consolidated in the cloud and can be accessed by using a search tool.

The ProtectWise network sensors rely on packets in order to do their analysis. When the sensors are deployed in the public cloud, the platform relies on CloudLens to send it packet level data; as there is no other way to get packet data in public cloud environments, wrote an Ixia spokesperson in an email to SDxCentral. "CloudLens is an agent that gets installed as a Docker container within the OS of ProtectWise’s monitoring tool instance in AWS [Amazon Web Services] or Azure," wrote the spokesperson.

From there, CloudLens is able to filter, process, and manipulate traffic in cloud environments. For example, it lets users go into the network to pull packet data, which can be sent to ProtectWise’s platform for further inspection and analysis.

This partnership has been in the works since Ixia announced the availability of CloudLens for the public cloud in April. Ixia announced a number of security and performance monitoring companies that can interoperate with CloudLens including ProtectWise, FireEye, Dynatrace, CA Technologies, LogRhythm, NTOP, AppNeta, NetFort Technologies, and Savvius.

Founded in 2013, ProtectWise has raised more than $67 million in funding and is based in Denver. The company's founders and engineering team come from security companies like McAfee, Palo Alto Networks, and Symantec.