Tuning Performance in Qualys Series: Deleting Outdated Compliance Data for Peak Efficiency
In today's dynamic IT environment, managing stale data is crucial for maintaining optimal performance and compliance. Qualys, a leading provider of cloud-based security and compliance solutions, has developed a utility to help manage stale data effectively. This utility is part of Qualys' Best Performance Series, designed to optimize and manage Qualys subscriptions for process automation.
Qualys recommends setting the configuration for data purging to a value greater than five times the scan frequency or 30 days, whichever is lower. This helps ensure that outdated data is regularly purged, reducing data bloat in customers' data stores and improving the accuracy of reports and dashboards.
Stale data can arise due to various factors, such as complex and legacy system landscapes that slow processes, manual workflows, and inefficient management leading to delays. Environments with numerous outdated applications and databases can cause data to be 'strongly outdated' and reduce operational efficiency.
Compliance data will not be received for assets that have been decommissioned, had technologies uninstalled or upgraded, were removed from policies, or had controls removed from policies. This can lead to IT teams chasing non-existent misconfigurations, impacting mean time to remediation (MTTR), obscuring an enterprise's overall compliance posture, and causing management to question the data. Stale data can also impact an organization's compliance posture.
Reporting on assets and postures that no longer exist in an environment can be detrimental. Qualys scans assets at a configured frequency that ranges from 4 hours to a week. After about 30 days, compliance scan and evaluated posture data will be purged if the above conditions are met.
The configuration for this utility can be specified via the UI. When exceptions are configured with a defined expiry, they will be purged after an additional safety period equal to the defined duration. An automatic purge job is set up after the initial data purge for regular housekeeping.
Customers can review a report of stale data and initiate its removal. For questions and further assistance, customers can schedule a meeting with Qualys' Solutions Architects and Product Managers. The automated 'purge features' available in Qualys can remove stale data automatically.
Qualys has created a utility to easily manage stale data in subscriptions, which automatically purges stale data from instances and technologies that have not been scanned in a customer-defined period of time. This utility reports on various types of stale data, helping customers maintain a clean and efficient data environment.
By effectively managing stale data, enterprises can improve their performance, maintain compliance, and make data-driven decisions with confidence. Qualys' utility is a valuable tool in this endeavour, providing a straightforward and automated solution for managing stale data in subscriptions.
