Configuration drift — the gradual divergence between how systems are supposed to be configured and how they actually are — sits behind four in five enterprise outages, according to industry data. When downtime costs exceed $14,000 per minute, discovering drift weeks after the fact carries serious financial and regulatory consequences.
Cloudhouse's latest Guardian release changes the detection timeline from weeks to minutes. A guided onboarding workflow for infrastructure nodes, automatic CIS benchmark assignment based on detected node types, and dynamic grouping by default collectively eliminate the manual setup that previously stood between IT teams and continuous visibility. Configurable scan intervals then maintain ongoing posture assessment and surface anomalies before they escalate.
The platform integrates with ServiceNow and Freshservice by Freshworks, reconciling approved changes against actual system state and flagging unauthorised deviations in real time. Guardian produces audit-ready reporting showing what changed, when, and by whom — directly relevant to NIS2, DORA, FCA, and SOX submissions.
"Configuration drift is one of the biggest hidden causes of operational risk inside modern enterprises. Most organisations only discover issues after an outage, failed audit or security incident has already happened. What we've done with this release is take the proven Guardian engine and wrap it in an experience that gets teams to a CIS-aligned baseline in a fraction of the time. The hardest part of any drift and compliance programme is getting started. We've removed that barrier, so teams can see what's changing across their estate, whether those changes are approved and where risk is building, long before it becomes business disruption," said Stephen Earl, Head of Product at Cloudhouse.
Guardian is structured as a modular platform. Organisations can begin with compliance monitoring and reporting, then layer in risk assessment, change control, and enterprise-wide governance as requirements evolve. The design targets CIOs, IT directors, CISOs and compliance leaders managing complex hybrid environments.
Jeremy Klomp, Principal Architect at Ascensus, the largest independent recordkeeping services provider in the United States and an existing Guardian customer, said: "One of the biggest differentiators with Cloudhouse is the team behind the product. They listen to customer feedback and turn it into real improvements. That level of collaboration is something you rarely see with larger vendors."
Founded in 2010, Cloudhouse operates three products across enterprise IT: Alchemy, which runs legacy applications on modern infrastructure without modification; Foundry, which automates application packaging at scale; and Guardian, which handles configuration compliance and drift detection. Customers include GE Healthcare, National Australia Bank, and HM Government.
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