Paul Fisher and Matthias present their very subjective summary of a really special and, in particular, especially challenging past year, 2021. They cannot do without the word 'pandemic' after all, but they also try to reach a first perspective on the year 2022 from the past 12 months.

The announcement of the GAIN initiative for the secure distribution of verified and assured identity data has been made at EIC in September. While the core concepts of this initiative have been discussed in earlier episodes, Martin and Anni sit down with Matthias to do a deeper dive into further aspects of GAIN, including the use beyond customer-related IAM and the challenge of privacy in such a hyper-connected network for PII.

Senior Analyst Graham Williamson joins Matthias from down under to talk about edge computing. Starting from the definition and relevant use cases, they focus on where the edge brings value. They discuss what the key criteria for a successful deployment are and what needs to be looked at to do edge computing while preserving security and privacy.

Lead analyst Alexei Balaganski joins Matthias for an episode on Data-Centric Security. Starting with a definition behind that term, they look at relevant technologies and market segments and discuss adequate ways of adding Data-Centric Security to an organization's cybersecurity strategy.

From November 9th to 11th, the Cybersecurity Leadership Summit 2021 took place in Berlin and virtually online. The Monday after, Martin Kuppinger and Matthias sat together to talk about some first impressions and insights from this event.

The recordings and slide decks are available for participants and those interested at https://www.kuppingercole.com/events/csls2021/

In the past, servers and applications were rather static, and entitlements too were static. But this has changed. Organizations must deal with a multi-cloud, multi-hybrid IT. Entitlements and access in today’s cloud environments are dynamic, just like workloads. Martin Kuppinger joins Martin to explore the area of Dynamic Resource Entitlement and Access Management (DREAM). Together they look at policies and automation as one key building block for managing today's volatile IT.

No big celebration, but at least a mention: this is the 100th episode of the KuppingerCole analyst chat. Martin Kuppinger joins Matthias to discuss the increasingly important topic of "everything as code" and how to define proper strategies for approaching this, especially in the context of the BASIS concept. For more on this, both recommend revisiting Martin's opening keynote from this year's EIC.

John Tolbert sits down with Matthias and shares his insights into current approaches for protecting and defending essential enterprise systems beyond traditional, often office-focused cybersecurity. Safeguarding Operational Technology (OT), Industrial Control Systems (ICS), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is getting increasingly important. John explains that modern approaches like Network Detection and Response (NDR) and especially Distributed Deception Platforms (DDP) can be valuable building blocks in an overall strategy for defending, for example, the factory floor or critical clinical systems.

Annie Bailey and Matthias take a deeper look at the emerging concept of the Global Assured Identities Network (GAIN) and also seek a broader perspective on the benefits and challenges of reusable identities in general.

The idea of low-code/no-code (LC/NC) application development is for end users to create their own custom applications, perhaps using a graphical design tool, selecting from a library of existing building blocks, or perhaps even with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Alexei Balaganski explains the concepts behind this new development, takes a look at the current market and, finally, highlights the challenges and security issues that may be hidden behind the use of such application development.