Build a Robust Security Architecture With Microsoft Technologies

While Microsoft’s extensive product ecosystem includes a variety of security capabilities, organizations frequently find themselves with these tools unintentionally, as part of broader Microsoft bundles. Whether deliberately chosen or passively acquired, the inherent complexity of Microsoft’s security stack leaves users struggling to understand and fully leverage their value, resulting in underuse, redundancy, and a fragmented security posture. Our research offers a framework for demystifying Microsoft’s offerings, empowering you to take control of your security, optimize investments, and build a truly robust defense.

It can be hard to know whether your organization’s investment in Microsoft cybersecurity products is sound when you aren’t aware of what tools you are or aren’t using, leading to capability gaps and security tool bloat. That lack of knowledge also hinders your ability to justify using non-Microsoft products.

1. Take a capability-first approach.

Cost consolidation efforts can miss the mark when used to rationalize security tools, as they can result in unacknowledged security gaps. Looking beyond individual tools to focus on capabilities allows you to identify your security stack’s hidden strengths and weaknesses. This capability-first approach can fuel intentional, strategic decisions about what you have, helping you find cost efficiencies and optimizing your security environment.

2. Knowing is half the battle.

Up to 90% of an organization’s security potential goes unused, leading to increased risk, wasted resources, and missed opportunities. IT security leaders must prioritize understanding their full security arsenal to make informed decisions and optimize their defenses.

3. Don’t settle for “good enough.”

Microsoft’s sprawling security ecosystem can result in unintentional overlaps and hidden redundancies, lulling organizations into a false sense of security and masking the need for unique solutions. Don’t simply accept default Microsoft solutions, but assess each capability, justify the use of alternatives, and strategically supplement your Microsoft stack to achieve security outcomes that are right for your organization.

Use this structured framework to optimize your Microsoft tools and build a robust security system

Our research provides four-step guidance, workbooks, and other tools to take a capability-focused accounting of your Microsoft security products. Use this comprehensive framework to optimize Microsoft’s capabilities to your security needs while justifying the use of non-Microsoft products to fill any gaps.

Conduct a security technology capability assessment to uncover hidden gaps, potential overlaps, and opportunities for optimization.
Optimize your existing security posture by identifying essential capabilities that are currently not implemented or operating optimally.
Eliminate duplication to fund new capabilities by making a cost comparison between desired Microsoft capabilities and non-Microsoft tools.
Justify unused capabilities and overlaps by documenting the use of alternative solutions in place of Microsoft offerings and a clear rationale for each.

Build a Robust Security Architecture With Microsoft Technologies Research & Tools

1. Build a Robust Security Architecture With Microsoft Technologies – Phases 1-4 – A step-by-step framework for optimizing and rationalizing Microsoft security products in your organization.

Use this deck to begin the process of getting the true measure of Microsoft technologies’ potential for your organization, and use those tools to plan a robust, best-fit security architecture.

Understand the obstacles and challenges of security tool bloat and how to overcome it.
Leverage a structured, capability-focused methodology to drive your approach.
Encounter expert insights to inform your ultimate choice of Microsoft security products and non-Microsoft alternatives.

2. Security Capability Assessment Workbook – A detailed Excel workbook designed to help you know where you stand with your security capabilities.

Use this comprehensive workbook to take a detailed, capability-based approach to assessing and selecting the right tools for your unique security needs.

List, map, and analyze your desired and current capabilities.
Set out optimization initiatives for capabilities that are either used and not optimized or available and desired.
Set out cost recovery plans and justify capability overlaps or unused capabilities.

3. Security Stack Capability Assessment Report – A concise presentation template designed to give you a detailed snapshot of your security capabilities.

Use this annotated template to help you distill your findings from your Security Capability Assessment Workbook into a useful presentation tailored for stakeholders.

Summarize key outcomes in each of four distinct capability categories.
Present deeper findings and proposed paths forward for each class of capability.
Fully customize your report for the benefit of internal decision-makers.

4. Maximize Your Investment in Microsoft Security Tools Deck – Discover new research to help security leaders strategically assess their Microsoft security investment.

Microsoft’s recent massive investments have made them a security tool powerhouse. You may have access to some of their tools by now, but are you truly maximizing their use? Strategically assess your Microsoft security capabilities, optimize what’s needed, cut wasteful duplication of costs, and justify the right alternatives for a stronger defense.

Learn more in this Info-Tech LIVE 2025 presentation.

Build a Robust Security Architecture With Microsoft Technologies

Maximize your investment in Microsoft security tools, and justify where supplements are required.

Analyst perspective

Less is more: Solving the many problems created by security tool bloat.

Fred Chagnon.

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, with new threats emerging daily. In this environment, organizations are increasingly looking to standardize their security platforms to simplify management, reduce costs, and improve their overall security posture. Microsoft, with its comprehensive suite of security products and services, has emerged as a leading contender in this space. However, despite its dominance, Microsoft users face challenges in maintaining a secure environment. This paradox of dominance and vulnerability underscores the complexities of the cybersecurity landscape.

Massive capability leads to massive complexity, and that means underutilization, redundancy, and a fragmented security posture. This research provides a solution to this Microsoft-created problem, empowering organizations to take control of their security stack, optimize their investments, and build a truly robust defense.

What you’ll find here is a capability-driven approach to application rationalization that understands that capability gaps mean security holes. By prioritizing security capabilities instead of software products and conducting a thorough assessment of the Microsoft security stack, organizations can gain a clear understanding of their existing tools, identify gaps and overlaps, and make informed decisions. This approach empowers organizations to optimize their security posture, reduce costs, and build a more robust defense against cyberthreats.

Fred Chagnon
Principal Research Director, Security & Privacy
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Your Challenge	Common Obstacles	Info-Tech’s Approach
You’re struggling to maximize your Microsoft security investments. You know you’re licensed for a bunch of capabilities you could be using but aren’t. You also know that you have solutions from other platforms that are disaggregated, and you’re trying to bring everything together. You have gaps you’d like to fill but you can’t justify the extra cost.	Whether you’re deeply invested in Microsoft or you only use their productivity suite, Microsoft’s $20 billion investment in security tools has created a problem for you – you need to either use these tools or justify why you’re using something else. Navigating Microsoft's vast and evolving security landscape is complex. Organizations face challenges with keeping up with product iterations (and name changes), understanding licensing models, integrating various tools, and overcoming organizational silos.	Our approach decomposes all the Microsoft security tools right down to their individual capabilities. That way we can perform an assessment of capabilities, rather than software tools, enabling you to: Uncover capabilities you're paying for but not using. Expose opportunities to optimize capabilities. Identify cost recovery opportunities to fund the desire for new features. Be intentional about which capabilities come from other providers.

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

You’re struggling to maximize your Microsoft security investments.

You know you’re licensed for a bunch of capabilities you could be using but aren’t.
You also know that you have solutions from other platforms that are disaggregated, and you’re trying to bring everything together.
You have gaps you’d like to fill but you can’t justify the extra cost.

Whether you’re deeply invested in Microsoft or you only use their productivity suite, Microsoft’s $20 billion investment in security tools has created a problem for you – you need to either use these tools or justify why you’re using something else.

Navigating Microsoft's vast and evolving security landscape is complex. Organizations face challenges with keeping up with product iterations (and name changes), understanding licensing models, integrating various tools, and overcoming organizational silos.

Our approach decomposes all the Microsoft security tools right down to their individual capabilities. That way we can perform an assessment of capabilities, rather than software tools, enabling you to:

Uncover capabilities you're paying for but not using.
Expose opportunities to optimize capabilities.
Identify cost recovery opportunities to fund the desire for new features.
Be intentional about which capabilities come from other providers.

Traditional application rationalization approaches undermine security.

Methodologies that focus primarily on cost consolidation miss the mark with security tools because they don’t factor in the potential for leaving security gaps. To mitigate this risk, dissect your Microsoft security stack with a capability-first approach. This way, you expose its hidden strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to make intentional, strategic decisions about every capability, leading to cost efficiencies and a truly optimized and secure environment.

You have security tools that you aren’t even using

Maybe the features were implemented a few months ago, and you don’t even know they exist.
Maybe you’ve been using another software solution since before Microsoft supported that capability.
Maybe you just upgraded to Microsoft 365 E5 because you needed a phone system and inherited an entire security stack along with it!

No more excuses!

Security tool bloat is a real phenomenon, and it’s costing you money and holding your security defense back!

Our fix: Stop tracking tools and start tracking capabilities!

76: The average number of security tools used by most organizations, up from 64 in 2020 (+19%).
Source: Panaseer, 2022.

Small: 15-20 security tools
Medium: 50-60 security tools
Large: Over 130 security tools

You’re not getting full value from the tools you do use

Maybe you have the functionality deployed, but the staff who deployed it have moved on and the knowledge is lost.
Maybe you’re so busy battling false positive alerts that you haven’t invested the time to tune the systems causing them.

Don’t buy new solutions until you optimize the ones you have!

The “more is better” approach is a trap that encourages suboptimal implementation of processes and procedures.

Our fix: Analyze the capabilities you have today and create a plan for their full optimization!

“Security teams keep buying new technologies, looking for the silver bullet, almost praying that this will solve their problems. Many products just sit on the shelf because they don’t integrate well, they overlap, or they’re too labor-intensive to implement.”
– Olivia Rose, Founder, Rose CISO Group LLC, quoted in SiliconANGLE, 2024

Only 10%-20% of cybersecurity technology is actually used.
Source: Richard Watson, cybersecurity leader at Ernst & Young, quoted in SiliconANGLE, 2024

You’re paying multiple vendors for the same capabilities

Maybe the non-Microsoft solution is more appropriate for your environment – has anyone challenged this?
Maybe the cost recovered from that alternate solution could be used for fun new capabilities to fill gaps in your security defense.

You don’t need to use Microsoft’s solution for everything, but you will need to have a good reason for why you don’t!

Our fix: Make intentional decisions about where you use alternate solutions. Rationalize, but don’t compromise.

“Starting the consolidation journey without compromising security seems daunting. However, Microsoft’s suite of security solutions offers a compelling path forward. With the cybersecurity market leaning towards consolidation, aligning with a mega-vendor like Microsoft can future-proof strategies. They’re one of only a few key players driving this shift and their integrated approach can help you stay ahead.”
Source: Red Canary, 2024

You can’t afford the capabilities you actually need

Maybe that upgrade from Microsoft 365 E3 to E5 is way out of your budget.
Maybe you’re looking at Microsoft Security Copilot but the cost of the security compute units (SCUs) are a barrier to entry.

Time to do some cost accounting.

Our fix: Subsidize your wish list by recovering the costs incurred by tool duplication.

A graph that demonstrates desired spend and redundant costs.

The image contains a screenshot of the slide on Build a Robust Security Architecture with Microsoft 365.

Info-Tech’s methodology for building a robust security architecture with Microsoft Technologies

	1. Assess	2. Optimize	3. Rationalize	4. Justify
Phase Steps	Assess licensed capabilities. Assess unlicensed capabilities.	Confirm the degree of optimization. Derive initiatives for the operational improvement of the capability.	Itemize the product bundles for desired capabilities. Itemize the product bundles that could be rationalized. Calculate the cost recovery balance.	Justify all instances of preferred alternative software Justify all instances of unused capabilities.
Phase Outcomes	Capabilities are assessed against multiple dimensions based on whether they’re licensed, deployed, missing, covered by an alternative, or simply not needed. This exercise sorts the capabilities into categories that become the focus of the phases that follow.	This phase yields a list of initiatives to further the operational improvement of deployed capabilities. These initiatives can be incorporated into an existing information security strategy or program.	This phase yields a cost recovery balance sheet showing that the true cost of capability acquisition may be offset by the cost of capability rationalization.	This phase provides an opportunity to validate and justify all instances of capability overlap where a preferred alternative is in place as well as where capabilities are not needed.

1. Assess

2. Optimize

3. Rationalize

4. Justify

Phase Steps

Assess licensed capabilities.
Assess unlicensed capabilities.

Confirm the degree of optimization.
Derive initiatives for the operational improvement of
the capability.

Itemize the product bundles for desired capabilities.
Itemize the product bundles that could be rationalized.
Calculate the cost recovery balance.

Justify all instances of preferred alternative software
Justify all instances of unused capabilities.

Phase Outcomes

Capabilities are assessed against multiple dimensions based on whether they’re licensed, deployed, missing, covered by an alternative, or simply not needed.

This exercise sorts the capabilities into categories that become the focus of the phases that follow.

This phase yields a list of initiatives to further the operational improvement of deployed capabilities.

These initiatives can be incorporated into an existing information security strategy or program.

This phase yields a cost recovery balance sheet showing that the true cost of capability acquisition may be offset by the cost of capability rationalization.

This phase provides an opportunity to validate and justify all instances of capability overlap where a preferred alternative is in place as well as where capabilities are not needed.

Insight summary

Traditional application rationalization approaches undermine security
Methodologies that focus primarily on cost consolidation miss the mark with security tools because they don’t factor in the potential for leaving security gaps. To mitigate this risk, dissect your Microsoft security stack with a capability-first approach. This way, you expose its hidden strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to make intentional, strategic decisions about every capability, leading to cost efficiencies and a truly optimized and secure environment.

Use it or lose it
Most organizations use only a fraction of their capabilities, missing opportunities to strengthen defenses and optimize investments. Take control of your security arsenal. Dive deep into your Microsoft licenses, uncover hidden functionalities, and make informed decisions to build a truly robust and resilient security posture.

Use tool duplication to your advantage
Your security budget holds hidden potential. By identifying and divesting redundant tools, you can unlock funds to acquire critical capabilities and optimize your security posture. Transform your budget from a constraint to an enabler, strengthening your defenses without overspending.

Leave no stone unturned
Don't let Microsoft's abundance of security features become a liability. Take control of your security strategy by meticulously documenting and justifying every technology choice. This transparency eliminates ambiguity, fosters accountability, and strengthens your security posture, ensuring a strategic and defensible approach to protecting your organization.

Don’t settle for “good enough”
Microsoft's sprawling security ecosystem, while offering a wealth of capabilities, often leads to unintentional overlaps and hidden redundancies. Its "good enough" strategy can lull organizations into a false sense of security, masking the need for specialized solutions.
Intentionally assess each capability, justify your reliance on alternatives, and strategically supplement your Microsoft stack to achieve a truly robust security posture.

Knowing is half the battle
Organizations are leaving 80%-90% of their security potential on the table. This lack of awareness leads to missed opportunities, wasted resources, and increased risk. IT security leaders must prioritize understanding their full security arsenal to make informed decisions and optimize their defenses.

Blueprint deliverables

As you work through this storyboard, you will be prompted to complete activities in the Security Capability Assessment Workbook. The results of these activities are used as inputs to populate the Microsoft Security Stack Capability Report.

Security Capability Assessment Workbook

Use this tool to conduct a full capability analysis of your Microsoft security tool suite.

The image contains a screenshot of the Security Capability Assessment Workbook.

Microsoft Security Stack Capability Assessment Report

Distill your findings from the Security Capability Assessment Workbook into an impactful stakeholder presentation.

The image contains screenshots of the Microsoft Security Stack Capability Assessment Report.

One assessment, four reports

A report on the % of owned capabilities with a list of your justifications.
A view of capability optimization and a plan to remediate suboptimal capabilities.
A report on capabilities that are not needed and a list of your justifications.
A cost recovery report that compares the cost of acquisition to recovered cost from duplication.

This unique approach to security rationalization is a win/win

IT Benefits	Business Benefits
Improved Security Posture: By identifying and addressing security gaps, optimizing tool configurations, and implementing unused capabilities, IT teams can significantly strengthen the organization's overall security posture and reduce the risk of cyberattacks. Reduced Complexity: Consolidating redundant tools and streamlining the security stack simplifies IT management, reduces administrative overhead, and improves efficiency. Enhanced Visibility and Awareness: Gaining a clear understanding of the organization's security capabilities and their utilization provides better visibility into the security landscape and enhances control over security operations.	Reduced Costs: Consolidating redundant tools and optimizing licensing can lead to significant cost savings, allowing the organization to allocate resources more effectively. Improved Productivity: A more secure and streamlined IT environment leads to fewer security incidents and disruptions, improving employee productivity and reducing downtime. Enhanced Reputation and Trust: A strong security posture and a proactive approach to risk management can enhance the organization’s reputation and build trust with customers and partners.

IT Benefits

Business Benefits

Improved Security Posture: By identifying and addressing security gaps, optimizing tool configurations, and implementing unused capabilities, IT teams can significantly strengthen the organization's overall security posture and reduce the risk of cyberattacks.

Reduced Complexity: Consolidating redundant tools and streamlining the security stack simplifies IT management, reduces administrative overhead, and improves efficiency.

Enhanced Visibility and Awareness: Gaining a clear understanding of the organization's security capabilities and their utilization provides better visibility into the security landscape and enhances control over security operations.

Reduced Costs: Consolidating redundant tools and optimizing licensing can lead to significant cost savings, allowing the organization to allocate resources more effectively.

Improved Productivity: A more secure and streamlined IT environment leads to fewer security incidents and disruptions, improving employee productivity and reducing downtime.

Enhanced Reputation and Trust: A strong security posture and a proactive approach to risk management can enhance the organization’s reputation and build trust with customers and partners.

Measure the value of this blueprint with these three key metrics

% of optimized security capabilities
Quantifying improvements to security posture and defense is difficult. We’ve designed the outcome of this process to instead focus on the degree to which your capabilities are running fully optimized – this will demonstrably move the needle on security defense.
$$$ saved through cost recovery
Itemizing and eliminating duplication of cost is a big win for this process. Using those costs to fund additional needed capabilities that further improve your security defense – that’s priceless.
Total % of justified alternatives and unused capabilities
This one is a little unconventional, but what it’s really measuring is the degree to which you are aware of your capabilities. Because you can’t manage the unknown.

The image contains a screenshot of examples of the three metrics.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit	Guided Implementation	Workshop	Executive & Technical Counseling	Consulting
“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”	“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”	“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”	“Our team and processes are maturing; however, to expedite the journey we’ll need a seasoned practitioner to coach and validate approaches, deliverables, and opportunities.”	“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all five options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Assess	Assess	Optimize	Rationalize	Justify
Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.	Call #2: Start the capability analysis. Call #3: Review and complete the capability analysis.	Call #4: Derive initiatives for optimization.	Call #5: Repackage capabilities into bundles for budgeting. Call #6: Repackage overlapped capabilities into bundles for cost recovery estimates.	Call #7: Justify preferred alternatives. Call #8: Justify unused capabilities.

Assess

Optimize

Rationalize

Justify

Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

Call #2: Start the capability analysis.

Call #3: Review and complete the capability analysis.

Call #4: Derive initiatives for optimization.

Call #5: Repackage capabilities into bundles for budgeting.

Call #6: Repackage overlapped capabilities into bundles for cost recovery estimates.

Call #7: Justify preferred alternatives.

Call #8: Justify unused capabilities.

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
	Security Capability Deep Dive	Optimize	Rationalize	Justify	Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
Activities	1.1 Determine your licensed capabilities. 1.2 Assess capability status.	2.1 Derive initiatives for optimization. 2.2 Create a roadmap/project plan for security capability optimization.	3.1 Repackage the capabilities into bundles to be procured. 3.2 Itemize the capabilities to be consolidated.	4.1 Justify preferred alternatives. 4.2 Justify unused capabilities.	5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
Deliverables	Security Technology Capability Map Security Technology Capability Assessment	Security Capability Optimization Roadmap	Cost Recovery Balance Sheet	Documented list of justified capability overlaps Documented list of acknowledged unused capabilities	Completed Microsoft Security Capability Report

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Security Capability Deep Dive

Optimize

Rationalize

Justify

Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

Activities

1.1 Determine your licensed capabilities.

1.2 Assess capability status.

2.1 Derive initiatives for optimization.

2.2 Create a roadmap/project plan for security capability optimization.

3.1 Repackage the capabilities into bundles to be procured.

3.2 Itemize the capabilities to be consolidated.

4.1 Justify preferred alternatives.

4.2 Justify unused capabilities.

5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

Deliverables

Security Technology Capability Map
Security Technology Capability Assessment

Security Capability Optimization Roadmap

Cost Recovery Balance Sheet

Documented list of justified capability overlaps
Documented list of acknowledged unused capabilities

Completed Microsoft Security Capability Report

Phase 1

Security Technology Capability Assessment

Assess	Optimize	Rationalize	Justify
1.1 Determine your licensed capabilities 1.2 Assess your capability status	2.1 Derive initiatives for optimization	3.1 Repackage the capabilities into bundles to be procured 3.2 Itemize the capabilities to be consolidated	4.1 Justify preferred alternatives 4.2 Justify unused capabilities

Assess

Optimize

Rationalize

Justify

1.1 Determine your licensed capabilities

1.2 Assess your capability status

2.1 Derive initiatives for optimization

3.1 Repackage the capabilities into bundles to be procured

3.2 Itemize the capabilities to be consolidated

4.1 Justify preferred alternatives

4.2 Justify unused capabilities

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

The capability assessment activity involves a systematic review of your organization's security needs and the Microsoft technologies available to meet those needs. It includes identifying and documenting the status of each capability, determining whether it's implemented, optimized, or superseded by alternative solutions.

This process helps uncover hidden gaps, potential overlaps, and opportunities for optimization, enabling informed decision-making about your security investments and ultimately leading to a stronger and more cost-effective security posture.

Phase insight

Don’t get clouded by the productization of security tools. Traditional tool-focused evaluations miss crucial vulnerabilities and redundancies. Dissect your Microsoft security stack, analyze each capability, and compare it with alternatives. This granular approach reveals hidden opportunities to optimize your investments and build a truly robust security strategy.

Analysis at the software product level doesn’t provide a granular enough comparison

We’re not comparing apples to apples. To truly build a robust architecture, you need to decompose the products into their component capabilities.

Our capability analysis tool has done this for most Microsoft product suites

Defender	Sentinel	Entra	Intune	Purview	Priva
Capabilities include: Endpoint antivirus and antimalware Automated investigation and response for desktops	Capabilities include: Security event log and data collection and management Threat detection on collected event logs User and entity behavior analytics from event logs	Capabilities include: Multifactor authentication Privileged identity management Identity governance Risk-based conditional access	Capabilities include: Multifactor authentication Privileged identity management Identity governance Risk-based conditional access	Capabilities include: Compliance assessment tools and templates Evidence management for compliance Compliance workflow automation	Capabilities include: Basic e-discovery search, export, and legal holds for Microsoft 365 applications e-discovery advanced search and analytics Enhanced e-discovery preservation and export

Defender

Sentinel

Entra

Intune

Purview

Priva

Capabilities include:

Endpoint antivirus and antimalware
Automated investigation and response for desktops

Capabilities include:

Security event log and data collection and management
Threat detection on collected event logs
User and entity behavior analytics from event logs

Capabilities include:

Multifactor authentication
Privileged identity management
Identity governance
Risk-based conditional access

Capabilities include:

Multifactor authentication
Privileged identity management
Identity governance
Risk-based conditional access

Capabilities include:

Compliance assessment tools and templates
Evidence management for compliance
Compliance workflow automation

Capabilities include:

Basic e-discovery search, export, and legal holds for Microsoft 365 applications
e-discovery advanced search and analytics
Enhanced e-discovery preservation and export

Microsoft’s suite may not represent an exhaustive set of capabilities

Microsoft is a fast follower, so it’s likely missing capabilities that are still in early adoption

When using Microsoft’s portfolio as the backdrop for your security tool evaluation, keep in mind that nascent markets and leading-edge capabilities remain out of scope.
Microsoft’s product suite has habitually only integrated features that are well developed and at parity with other like tools in the market.
In fact, Microsoft has the effect of rapidly commoditizing certain software markets when they enter the space – a phenomenon we explore further in the research linked below.

The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates what is most likely not included and likely included with Microsoft's suite.

Additional Research: Stop Wasting Time Evaluating Commoditized Products and Services

Build a Robust Security Architecture With Microsoft Technologies visualization

Maximize your investment in Microsoft security tools and justify where supplements are required.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

You get:

Build a Robust Security Architecture with Microsoft Technologies Storyboard
Security Capability Assessment Workbook
Security Stack Capability Assessment Report

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Assess.

Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
Call 2: Start the capability analysis.
Call 3: Review and complete the capability analysis.

Guided Implementation 2: Optimize.

Call 1: Derive initiatives for optimization.
Call 2: Repackage capabilities into bundles for budgeting.
Call 3: Repackage overlapped capabilities into bundles for cost recovery estimates.