FireMon today announced plans to purchase Lumeta in an effort to improve network visibility and security at a time when many organizations are moving to the cloud and struggling to understand the many devices in their environments.

Firemon's platform creates and enforces security policies across network devices. However, the process of doing this isn't as simple as it used to be. Today's businesses have new devices, tools, cloud assets, and other resources constantly moving into and within their networks, making it tough to identify all the different parts and how they communicate. The challenge is especially great for major corporations and government agencies with large-scale network operations.

Enter Lumeta, a company originally spun out of Bell Labs that became known for mapping all servers and devices connected to the Internet. Today, its tech supports "situational awareness" by detecting, mapping, and analyzing enterprise connectivity on-prem and in the cloud.

By leveraging Lumeta's tool, FireMon said its users will be able to extend their network policy management to previously unknown network elements and cloud resources, and ideally shrink the attack surface and identify possibly risky activity.

The acquisition could also bridge the gap between security and business teams, which often struggle to get on the same page, according to Firemon. Business and DevOps experts can determine the enterprise intent, and related security and compliance requirements, before automating the creation of rules to enforce that intent.

Firemon's acquisition is expected to finalize in the second quarter of 2018. Upon closing, it plans to continue running Lumeta as a stand-alone business while adding resources to drive its development and integration with the Firemon platform.