What Is Micro-Segmentation? Agentless Visibility and Segmentation Architecture with Faddom
What is Microsegmentation? Agentless visibility and segmentation architecture with Faddom
Microsegmentation is a security strategy that limits an attacker's lateral movement during a breach by dividing traffic between resources in the application environment using granular controls. The most critical prerequisite for this strategy is full traffic visibility—Faddom meets this requirement by passively and in real-time mapping server-to-server and internet traffic without requiring agent installation; it then translates the observed traffic into automated policy recommendations and actionable rules via Nutanix Flow.
Why is microsegmentation critical?
Traditional perimeter security heavily relies on internal traffic once the data center is breached. Microsegmentation eliminates this assumption: every server, every application tier, and even traffic between VMs on the same host is treated as a separate trust boundary. Even if an attacker compromises a single endpoint, granular rules prevent them from moving outside that segment.
Zero Trust
Applies the least privilege principle to user and application access; the "verify first, connect later" logic spans every point of the network.
Attack Surface Reduction
Isolates systems from each other, limiting the impact area of a potential cyberattack to a single segment; lateral movement is prevented.
Eliminating Visibility Gaps
Provides a concrete, real-time answer to the "which server is talking to which service" question, which IT teams often do not know.
Why does segmentation fail without visibility?
Teams usually start a microsegmentation project with policy design—but discovery, the most critical step, is either skipped or superficially executed using agent-based tools that collect incomplete data. The result is undocumented dependencies being blocked by rules in the production environment.
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Without Visibility PROBLEM: Undocumented application interfaces are missed when writing rules. Tools requiring agent installation leave gaps in legacy systems. Shadow IT traffic remains outside the segment unnoticed. When the rule is deployed, the business application unexpectedly stops.
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Visibility with Faddom SOLUTION: Server-to-server and internet traffic is mapped automatically. Passive, agentless discovery—no agent installation required. Shadow IT and unknown flows are revealed during discovery. Impact analysis is performed before deploying the rule.
Faddom's Microsegmentation architecture: five layers
Faddom structures the microsegmentation process as a single continuous loop: discover → map → plan → apply → validate. Each layer takes the output of the previous one as input; manual inventory keeping or predictive rule writing is eliminated.
| Layer | Function | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery (agentless / passive) | Observes all traffic in real-time, including internal communication between servers, VMs, and on the same host. | Complete, continuously updated traffic inventory |
| Mapping (lateral traffic) | Visualizes connections between systems; reveals undocumented interfaces and hidden dependencies. | Application communication map |
| Detection (shadow IT) | Identifies application and traffic flows unknown to IT; forms the basis for least privilege policies. | Unknown traffic inventory |
| Planning (automated rules) | Automatically generates traffic rules using application maps; forwards them to Prism Central via Nutanix Flow. | Actionable segmentation policy |
| Validation (visual feedback) | Monitors rule effectiveness with color-coded maps; provides impact analysis before deployment. | Validated, traceable policy status |
Example scenario: Segmentation of a 3-tier application
The example below shows a traffic table that could emerge during the Faddom discovery process of a typical enterprise application consisting of web / application / database tiers. If rules were deployed before discovering flows like reporting-svc-04 and legacy-batch-job, which Faddom reveals during its discovery process, the related business processes would be disrupted.
app-api-02 → db-primary-01 (MSSQL / 1433)
After policy deployment: color-coded validation
Faddom's maps instantly reflect the effectiveness of the created segmentation rules. This eliminates the uncertainty of "we wrote the rule, hope it works right".
Green connection: communication successful, policy working as expected. Red connection: traffic blocked by firewall.
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Green — Successful web → app / 443: Expected traffic flow is maintained, no risk of interruption.
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Red — Blocked app → reporting / 8081: Before the rule was applied, impact analysis flagged that this flow would affect the reporting module; the rule was reviewed.
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Red — Blocked legacy-batch → db / 1433: Flow identified as Shadow IT; intentionally kept restricted until verified with the business owner.
From observation to execution: Faddom
The success of microsegmentation depends on how well the infrastructure is visible, rather than the sophistication of the rule engine. Faddom transforms the hybrid infrastructure from a "black box" by visualizing the communication model of each server and application in an agentless, passive, and real-time manner; thereby eliminating the risk of microsegmentation projects causing production outages due to undocumented dependencies during the planning phase. Faddom's microsegmentation planning module automatically generates traffic rules using application maps and forwards them directly to Prism Central via Nutanix Flow integration. VMware integration is currently on the roadmap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is microsegmentation?
Microsegmentation is a strategy of dividing traffic between resources in application environments into segments with granular controls. Its goal is to restrict an attacker's lateral movement capability within the network in the event of a breach.
Q: Does Faddom require agents in microsegmentation projects?
No. Faddom discovers and maps traffic flows passively and in real-time, without requiring any agent installation on servers or virtual machines.
Q: Which platforms does Faddom offer policy integration with?
Faddom can currently translate observed traffic flows directly into security policies and forward them to Prism Central via Nutanix Flow integration. VMware integration is on the roadmap.
Q: What is the most common risk in microsegmentation projects?
The most common risk is IT teams not knowing exactly which server is communicating with which service. This lack of visibility can lead to critical business applications being disrupted due to misconfigured rules.