Products · Architect Explorer™

Read policy. Push policy. From one surface.

Architect Explorer is the read-and-author surface for the AE+PAE platform. Cross-platform visibility, direct push, and continuous archive across every enforcement platform you run.

Cisco Secure Workload, ACI, Panorama, FMC, cloud, ServiceNow. One model of policy across all of them. Architects, App Owners, and Audit work from the same source of truth.

Schedule a demoHow it works
Architect Explorer · liveBTA · v1.0
Multi-vendor viewunified
NETWORKOKENDPOINTOKCLOUDOK
Policy lifecycle
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rule.#1235attested
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Compliance
  • HIPAA
  • PCI
  • SOC 2
  • GDPR
StatusOne pane, multi-vendor
How it works

What AE actually does.

Four capabilities AE handles directly. The cross-platform enforcement layer lives in the AE+PAE platform section below.

  • 01

    Streamlined policy visualization

    AE converts complex configurations into clear, actionable visuals so IT teams identify inefficiencies and reduce policy conflicts in minutes.

    • Multi-vendor
    • Hybrid
    • Visual-first
  • 02

    Automated policy lifecycle

    Automate creation, testing, enforcement, and retirement of policies. Save engineering hours while ensuring consistent enforcement across hybrid IT environments.

    • Lifecycle automation
    • Testing built in
  • 03

    Conflict detection and resolution

    Maintain operational harmony by automatically identifying and resolving policy conflicts, reducing risks from misconfiguration before they reach production.

    • Drift detection
    • Auto-remediation
  • 04

    Comprehensive compliance reporting

    Pre-built templates and detailed audit reports keep environments aligned with HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, CMMC, and SOC 2.

    • HIPAA
    • PCI DSS
    • GDPR
    • SOC 2
  • 05

    Real-time monitoring and alerts

    Streaming telemetry across endpoint, network, and cloud, with prioritized alerts operators can act on instead of triage.

    • Streaming telemetry
    • Prioritized alerts
What each team gets

How AE shows up for each stakeholder.

Same surface, different jobs. What every team actually does with AE day to day.

Industries
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare
  • Manufacturing
  • Defense & Government
  • Insurance
Roles + benefit
  • Application OwnersApprove access in business language. No CSW, ACI, or Panorama UI to learn.
  • Risk & PolicyRead intent and approvals in one place. Sign off on coverage, not configurations.
  • AuditContinuous archive plus pre-built evidence packages. Prep stops being a fire drill.
  • SecOpsCross-platform visibility into permits, denies, drift, and orphans. One report, every PEP.
  • Network EngineeringDirect policy push from one surface. Ship a change without clicking through five consoles.
  • C-SuiteCompliance posture and ClickOps reduction as numbers, not slide decks.
“Saves a LOT of time for engineers to compile and compare policies for approvals. We should've started with this.”
ACAE customer·Network engineering,
Case study

Real Architect Explorer™ work, in the field.

A representative engagement showing how BTA scopes, deploys, and hands off.

Case study
Software
Global software company
  • Data center fabric
  • Operational runbooks
  • Visibility

Modernizing the data center with embedded enablement.

A leading social impact software provider serving millions of users across 100+ countries needed to modernize its data center but lacked the people, tools, and processes to deploy a new fabric. AE supported the rollout with visibility and policy lifecycle while BTA paired engineers with the customer team and delivered operational runbooks.

  • Deployed
    Functional fabric in production
  • Owned
    Future deployments by customer team
  • 100+
    Countries served by the customer
Read the case study
From the field

Stop living in ClickOps.Your team is paying for every additional console.

A unified management layer for security policy, across every enforcement platform. Anchored to what you already pay.

Every additional enforcement platform compounds the per-console labor and the human-error class that comes with it. A typical 500-agent environment loses roughly half an FTE every year on policy maintenance alone.

  • 01

    Console hopping

    CSW. ACI. Panorama. FMC. Cloud. ServiceNow. Each console has its own UI, its own report formats, its own gaps. Your team jumps screens to answer a single question.

  • 02

    Conventions break under pressure

    Five clicks deep into ACI at 11:55pm, conventions get dropped to ship the change. The audit finds it months later. The remediation cycle begins.

  • 03

    The truth gets buried

    Native consoles bury drops and rejects three menus deep. Each investigation costs 30+ minutes of clicking. Multiply that by every alert your team triages this week.

The platform

One management layer.Every Policy Enforcement Point. Every stakeholder.

Architect Explorer and the Policy Automation Engine, working together. Pluggable enforcement platforms, one model of policy, one surface every stakeholder can read.

Built for everyone who reads policy

Not just those who configure it.

  • Application Owners
  • Risk & Policy
  • Audit
  • SecOps
  • Network Engineering
AE/PAE · PlatformPluggable PEPs
AE/PAECSWACIPanoramaFMCCloudServiceNowPLUGGABLE PEPS · ONE PANE · ONE MODEL OF POLICY
  • 01

    Cross-platform visibility and reporting

    One report for permits, denies, drift, and orphans across every PEP. Stop reconciling five console exports before audit cycles.

  • 02

    Direct policy push

    Author once in AE. Push to Cisco Secure Workload, ACI EPGs, Panorama, or FMC. No more clicking through five screens to ship a change.

  • 03

    Continuous policy archive

    Every change captured. Every prior state preserved. Audit prep stops being a fire drill. The evidence pack is already there.

  • 04

    Naming conventions enforced at authoring

    The human-error class that hits during 11pm change windows disappears. The convention you set is the convention that ships.

What changes

Four ways your team wins.

Operations, governance, compliance, and risk. Same direction at the same time.

  • Operations

    ClickOps reduction

    Consolidated reporting replaces console-hopping. Direct push from AE replaces clicking through five screens to ship one change.

    10×
    Fewer clicks for routine policy work
  • Governance

    Review without the consoles

    Application Owners, Risk, and Policy teams read policy like a business document. No one has to learn CSW, ACI, or Panorama interfaces to approve a change.

    75%
    Less time per policy review cycle
  • Compliance

    Audit preparedness

    Continuous archive plus pre-built evidence packages. Findings that originate as ClickOps errors stop showing up in the first place.

    60%
    Less audit-prep time per cycle
  • Risk

    Risk reduction

    Naming conventions enforced at authoring. Drift caught faster. Blast radius bounded when something does go wrong.

    40%
    Fewer misconfig-driven incidents
The numbers

ROI in plain math.

Anchored to what you already pay. Procurement gets a familiar reference. Your team gets the savings.

Example environment · 500 Cisco Secure Workload agents · 3 integrated enforcement platforms · SaaS delivery · $180K loaded engineering FTE

  • $226K
    Annual gross savings. ClickOps, reviews, audit, risk combined.
  • $153K
    Annual platform fee. Anchored to what you already pay.
  • 8 mo
    Payback period at steady-state savings.
  • 48%
    Year-1 ROI at steady state.
How it’s priced
  • 01

    Anchored to existing license

    Base pricing is a percentage of your existing platform license. Procurement gets a familiar reference.

  • 02

    Per integration, not per device

    Fifty firewalls under one Panorama costs the same integration fee as five. Sprawl inside a platform isn't billed extra.

  • 03

    Live ROI calculator in scoping

    BTA delivers a working model during the scoping engagement. Change the inputs to match your environment. The numbers update with them.

Talk to a BTA architect to model your numbers
What makes us different

We're architects who execute.

Three principles every BTA engagement runs on. Visible in the work itself.

  • We architect, deploy, and stay through Day-2.

    Every engagement is end-to-end. We design the target environment, deploy it in stages, and remain on hand through the operational handoff.

  • We train your team to own the outcome.

    Training is part of every engagement. By the close of an engagement, your operators can run, maintain, and defend the system to an auditor.

  • We measure success when your team runs it alone.

    An engagement closes when your team is operating the solution without us in the room. SIMPLE methodology enforces this exit criterion on every project.

SIMPLE Methodology
See how SIMPLE works
Engagement models

We meet you where you are.

Some teams want the full BTA delivery from architecture to handoff. Others bring us in for a single advisory window or a fully managed operations contract. Pick the model that fits and adjust as the business changes.

Talk to a specialist
Featured · default

Full Service Lifecycle

Architect, deploy, train, hand off.

The complete BTA engagement. We design the target environment, deploy in stages, and train your operating team along the way. SIMPLE methodology end to end. Your team owns Day-2.

  • SIMPLE methodology
  • 1,000+ projects
  • 0 project failures
  • End-to-end project management
See the full delivery
Or pick a focused engagement format
AE · FAQ

Architect Explorer™, answered.

Direct answers to what most evaluators ask before deployment.

  • What is Architect Explorer?

    AE is the read-and-author surface for security and network policy across every enforcement platform you run. Application Owners, Risk, Audit, SecOps, and Network Engineering work from the same view of policy. Together with PAE, AE is the AE+PAE management layer.

  • What enforcement platforms does AE read from and push to?

    AE supports Cisco Secure Workload, Cisco ACI, Palo Alto Panorama, Cisco Firepower Management Center (FMC), major cloud providers, and ServiceNow for change management. Adding a new platform is an integration, not a re-architecture. The same operating model carries across.

  • Who in the organization actually uses AE?

    Anyone who reads policy, not just those who configure it. Application Owners attest access in business language. Risk and Policy teams read intent and sign off on coverage. Audit pulls evidence packages directly. SecOps gets cross-platform visibility into permits, denies, drift, and orphans. Network Engineering pushes changes from one surface instead of clicking through five consoles. No team has to learn the CSW, ACI, or Panorama UI just to do its job.

  • Do we need Policy Automation Engine alongside AE?

    AE delivers value on its own as a read-and-author surface across multi-vendor enforcement platforms. PAE adds the automation engine that turns attestations into policy pushed to every PEP, with naming conventions enforced at authoring. Together they read as one management layer. Many customers start with AE and add PAE as policy authoring volume grows.

  • How does AE handle compliance?

    Pre-built compliance templates and detailed audit reports keep your environment aligned with HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, CMMC, and SOC 2. The same telemetry pipeline drives SOC dashboards and audit reports, so security and compliance read the same numbers.

  • Can AE monitor IT environments in real time?

    Yes. AE streams telemetry across endpoint, network, and cloud, with prioritized alerts operators can act on instead of triage. Drift and conflicts surface as findings, not as background noise.

  • How is AE priced?

    AE is anchored to your existing platform licenses, priced per integration rather than per device. Scale within a platform (fifty firewalls under one Panorama, for example) doesn't increase cost over five. BTA delivers a live ROI calculator during scoping so you can model the math against your environment.

  • How does BTA implement AE?

    AE deployments run on BTA's SIMPLE methodology. Discovery, design, staged rollout, mentored handoff. Your team owns Day-2.
30 minutes

Schedule a call. We’ll scope it in 30 minutes.

Bring your hardest architecture problem. We’ll tell you what we’d do, what it costs, and how long it takes.

  • 30-minute scoping call
  • 1,000+ projects shipped
  • Training in every engagement

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