Three Reasons to License Axiom Cyber in the Cloud

When it comes to your purchase of Axiom Cyber, you have a couple of different options for licensing. Every team has different needs, team structures, and compliance obligations to fulfill, and we try to help you with that by giving you licensing options.

Those licensing options are:

• Machine key: Fixed to a single workstation*
• Dongle: A physical device (i.e. a USB key) with a license of Axiom Cyber on it that can be installed on a workstation.
• Cloud License Server (CLS): Any workstation, anywhere, can connect to an available license of Axiom Cyber from the pool of CLS licenses available.

*If something happens to your workstation running Axiom Cyber and you “lose” your license, there are definitely ways that we can help you get it back, so don’t worry!

Today we want to talk about CLS and share 3 reasons why you may want to go down that licensing path for Axiom Cyber.

1. Perform off-network collections 

With many organizations operating with a hybrid or remote workforce, you’re inevitably going to run into a case where you are going to have to collect data from a remote endpoint that isn’t connected to your corporate network, say through a VPN.

With CLS licensing of Axiom Cyber—you can reliably collect data from off-network endpoints!

 Collecting data from remote and off-network endpoints remains a major challenge for in-house teams and service providers. In this year’s State of Enterprise DFIR report, which shares insights from a survey of almost 400 DFIR professionals globally, we found that 42% of corporate DFIR practitioners report difficulty acquiring from remote and/or off-network endpoints. Request a copy of the report to learn about this insight and more, including expert commentary and recommendations.

To learn more about off-network collections and see a demo of it, check out this short webinar titled Tips & Tricks // Remotely Collect From Off-Network Endpoints Using AWS and Axiom Cyber.

2. Run Axiom Cyber in the cloud 

Axiom Cyber also has the ability for CLS customers to run Axiom Cyber in an AWS EC2 or Azure instance! Again, another big one that our customers have been asking for along with off-network collection. There are a handful of benefits as to why you’d want to run Axiom Cyber in the cloud.

• Greater flexibility: Don’t rely on physical hardware that may be in use, simply inaccessible (e.g. on the other side of the world) or may not have the performance specs that are up to the task at hand. By spinning up an EC2 or Azure instance, you immediately have access to as much compute power as you need.
• Be anywhere in the world: You can create your EC2 or Azure instance wherever you need it to be, and more often than not, you’re going to want that instance as geographically close to your target endpoint. This’ll afford you two benefits. Number one: your remote collection will be faster since you’re not having to send data halfway across the world through Internet cables on the ocean floor. Number two: you’ll be able to adhere to data residency.

If you’re not sold on the cloud just yet and need a few more reasons to get you there, read this blog Five reasons why I stopped fighting the cloud from one of our special guest authors, Rick Whittington, a Sr. Cloud Security Engineer.

3. Get the most value from your licenses 

The Cloud License Server license model has been designed to allow you to maximize its usage or in other words: to give you the biggest bang for your buck.

The dongle license was a very popular license model and our primary one for a long time. It was handy. You could take a dongle, install Axiom Cyber on your workstation and use it whenever you wanted.

But what happened when your colleague Sven needed to use Axiom Cyber too? No problem, you’d pass the dongle over to Sven who was sitting four feet away from you, he would install it on his machine, and he could use it too. The problem, however, is that Sven—most likely—isn’t sitting four feet away from you anymore, he’s at his place and you are at yours. You can’t share the dongle anymore.

This is why the CLS license is so great! Licenses are very easy to share amongst your team of examiners who could be anywhere in the world, a major benefit for global organizations or those who’ve adopted a hybrid work model. Now when you need to use Axiom Cyber on your workstation, grab an available license from your pool. If one isn’t available at the moment, ask Sven if he can check his back in to the pool so you can check it out right away. It’s that easy!

If you’re already an Axiom Cyber customer but not using CLS yet, we’d love to chat with you about options. You can reach out to your Sales rep or email us. If you’re not a customer yet, and you to want to try Axiom Cyber for yourself, request a free trial today.