Managing USP Zones and Violations: Best Practices

Overview

In large environments, factors such as deeply nested zone hierarchies, large zones with many subnets, and complex Unified Security Policies (USPs) can result in a high volume of rule violations. This may affect overall system performance, including UI responsiveness and processing speed. In some cases, help from Tufin Support may be required to resolve these issues.

This topic outlines best practices to help prevent excessive violations and maintain system performance.

Disclaimer: The examples in this topic are based on internal observations and past escalations. Because every environment is different, depending on topology, device rules, frequency of changes, and more, your experience may vary.

Built-In Guardrails for Managing Violations

SecureTrack includes built-in limits to prevent excessive violation calculations from impacting system performance:

  • Violation cap per rule: When the system reaches 850,000 total violations, only the first 100 violations per rule are shown. These are sorted by severity, from most to least severe.

    When this limit is reached, SecureTrack enters a limited state and displays a warning message during login. The message may vary, but typically includes wording such as: The total violations threshold has been reached. Violations are now limited to 100 per rule. Please contact your TOS admin.

  • USP matrix size limit: The USP matrix supports a maximum of 100 zones per side (100×100 cells). You cannot add more than 100 source or destination zones in the matrix.

    This is a hard limit that prevents further additions in the user interface but does not affect system performance.

  • Any-to-Any rule limit: Rules with Any as both source and destination can generate extremely high numbers of violations. To prevent performance issues, SecureTrack shows only the first 100 violations for these rules. This limit is always enforced and does not depend on a global threshold.

Best Practices for Preventing Redundant Violations

Use the following recommendations to reduce unnecessary violations and improve USP performance:

Define zones accurately

  • Define specific subnets where possible. Using more specific subnets helps prevent overlaps that may match unrelated rules and generate unnecessary violations. Avoid using broad subnets such as Class A or Class B unless required.

  • Use IPAM integration. Use the IPAM Security Policy App (ISPA) to automate zone creation and manage subnets more accurately. This helps make your USPs more precise. Manual zone and subnet entry is time-consuming and more likely to introduce errors.

Use zone hierarchies where appropriate

  • Group similar zones. If multiple sub-zones (such as HR-Internal, HR-External, HR-Remote) share the same compliance needs, use a single HR zone for inter-site USPs.
  • Split when needed. If access differs between sub-zones, use separate rules to avoid duplicate violations.

Example:

  • Inter-site USP: Defines traffic between major zones like HR, Finance, and R&D.
  • Intra-site USP: Defines traffic within departments like Finance-Audit and Finance-Reporting.

Potential Causes of Violation Overload

In some environments, the following patterns have contributed to strain in violation processing:

  • A large number of zones or overly broad subnets in zone definitions.
  • Very large USP matrices with many combinations of source and destination zones.
  • Repeated zone-to-zone violations for the same rule due to overlapping compliance requirements.
  • Frequent rule changes or topology updates that trigger recalculations.
  • Policies applied to many devices across a wide rule base.

These issues may not appear immediately. They tend to build up over time and vary widely depending on system size, configuration, and ongoing changes.

In complex environments, violation counts can be in the millions when zone definitions or policies aren't well aligned. Even smaller systems may experience issues if key cleanup or structure practices are not followed.

When to Contact Tufin Support

If you notice slowness, UI disruption, or unusual behavior in SecureTrack related to violations, Tufin support can help assess the issue and recommend next steps.

How support can help

Tufin support can assist with:

  • Reviewing USP design and matrix size.
  • Identifying rules or zones contributing to excessive violations.
  • Adjusting system thresholds for your environment.
  • Helping optimize SecureTrack’s performance and violation handling.

If a system warning appears or performance degrades, contact Tufin Support to review your configuration and resolve any underlying issues.