Elisity 16.13: Enhanced Asset Intelligence and Granular Control Accelerate Enterprise Microsegmentation

As Product Manager at Elisity, I'm thrilled to share how our 16.13 release builds upon the foundation we established in 16.12, addressing three critical operational challenges our customers face: the need for richer device classification beyond standard attributes, and the requirement for granular control in complex environments. These enhancements emerge directly from customer deployments across manufacturing plants, healthcare networks, and distributed enterprises managing hundreds of thousands of devices. Today's release reinforces our commitment to making identity-based microsegmentation achievable in weeks, not years, while maximizing the value of your existing infrastructure investments.

Custom Connector: Custom Attributes Transform Device Classification

Enrich Elisity IdentityGraph™ with Your Unique Organizational Intelligence

Building on the Custom Connector introduced in 16.12, we've now added support for up to 20 custom attributes per connector instance, with both integer and string data types. This enhancement fundamentally expands how organizations can leverage their institutional knowledge within Elisity's identity-based microsegmentation platform.

Addressing Real-World Classification Challenges

Our customers consistently tell us that standard device attributes—while essential—don't capture the full context needed for comprehensive security policies. Manufacturing organizations need to track production line assignments, shift schedules, and safety criticality levels. Healthcare institutions require patient care unit designations, medical device certifications, and HIPAA compliance statuses. Financial services track transaction processing roles, PCI scope indicators, and data sensitivity classifications. These custom attributes represent years of accumulated organizational intelligence that directly impacts security policy decisions.

The new custom attributes capability enables you to import and leverage these organization-specific data points directly within Elisity IdentityGraph™. Each custom attribute becomes immediately available for policy matching, enabling unprecedented precision in device classification and policy application. Combined with automatic data cleanup that standardizes MAC formats and removes whitespace, your custom data integrates seamlessly without manual preprocessing.

Operational Excellence Through Flexibility

What makes this enhancement particularly powerful is its impact on policy accuracy and operational efficiency. Security teams can now create policies based on any combination of standard and custom attributes, ensuring that device classification aligns perfectly with organizational requirements. The ability to accept entries with empty MAC addresses—matching via IP or hostname instead—ensures that even devices with incomplete data can be properly classified and secured.

For enterprises managing complex device inventories, this means your existing CMDBs, asset tracking systems, and custom databases become immediate force multipliers for your microsegmentation deployment. The institutional knowledge embedded in these systems now directly enhances every policy decision, reducing classification errors and accelerating deployment timelines.

Per-Port Configuration Control: Precision Management for Complex Environments

Transform Operational Flexibility with Granular Port-Level Control

The new per-port configuration capability for endpoint discovery and flow telemetry fundamentally changes how enterprises manage microsegmentation in heterogeneous environments. Instead of applying settings uniformly across an entire switch, administrators can now configure behavior individually for each port, with support for bulk operations when consistency is needed.

Solving Real-World Deployment Challenges

Enterprise networks are rarely uniform. A single switch might connect user workstations, IoT devices, critical servers, guest networks, and inter-switch links. Each port type requires different discovery and telemetry settings for optimal security and performance. The previous switch-level configuration forced compromises—either over-monitoring some ports or under-monitoring others.

With per-port configuration, each port can be set to Automatic (letting Elisity determine optimal settings based on port type), Manual-Enabled, or Manual-Disabled. This granular control enables security teams to precisely tune their microsegmentation deployment. Critical server ports can have full telemetry enabled, while inter-switch links can be excluded from endpoint discovery to reduce overhead. Guest network ports can have specific monitoring profiles, and IoT device ports can be configured for their unique traffic patterns.

Operational Efficiency at Scale

The implementation includes intelligent bulk operations, allowing administrators to apply configurations across multiple ports simultaneously while maintaining the flexibility to override individual ports as needed. This balance between granular control and operational efficiency is crucial for enterprises managing thousands of switch ports across distributed locations.

For multi-site organizations, per-port configuration enables standardized templates that can be customized for local requirements. A manufacturing facility can apply different settings to production floor ports versus office ports. Healthcare facilities can differentiate between clinical device ports and administrative workstation ports. This flexibility ensures that microsegmentation policies align precisely with operational requirements without compromising security or performance.

Additional Platform Enhancements

Beyond these three major features, 16.13 includes numerous improvements that enhance daily operations:

• Claroty xDome and Medigate Integration: Bidirectional device label sharing improves asset classification accuracy
• Microsoft Defender Government Cloud Support: Extended integration for GCC and GCCH environments
• Elisity Virtual Edge Group Rebalancing: Customer-accessible load distribution for optimal performance
• Enhanced Policy Insights: Simplified suggestions workflow and selective policy adoption
• Traffic Analytics Improvements: Better filtering, port detection accuracy, and shift-click navigation shortcuts

Continuous Innovation Driven by Customer Success

The 16.13 release demonstrates our commitment to addressing the practical challenges enterprises face when implementing microsegmentation at scale. Every enhancement—from custom attributes to license flexibility to granular port control—emerged from real customer deployments and feedback. We're not just building features; we're solving the operational challenges that prevent organizations from achieving comprehensive network security.

These capabilities ensure that whether you're protecting critical infrastructure in manufacturing, securing patient data in healthcare, or defending intellectual property in technology sectors, Elisity provides the flexibility, intelligence, and control you need. The platform continues to deliver on our promise of microsegmentation in weeks, not years, without agents, hardware, or network redesigns.

Access Complete Technical Documentation

For detailed implementation guides and technical specifications, access the 16.13 Release Notes in the Elisity Knowledge Base (customers and partners only).

Deploy These Enhancements Today

Ready to maximize your infrastructure investment with these new capabilities? Contact your Elisity account team. Not yet an Elisity customer, request a demo to see how Elisity can transform your network security operations.