Performance Optimization for Security Scans

Performance Optimization for Security Scans

Security scanning can significantly impact pipeline performance if not properly optimized. Baseline your pipeline performance before and after adding security scans to understand the impact. Identify bottlenecks through pipeline analytics – are scans waiting for resources, or do they genuinely require the observed execution time? Use this data to guide optimization efforts.

Distributed scanning leverages multiple agents or containers to parallelize security analysis. Large codebases benefit from splitting scans across multiple workers, with each analyzing different components. Container-based CI/CD platforms excel at this distribution, spinning up multiple scanning containers that work in parallel. Ensure scanning tools support distributed execution and result aggregation.

Intelligent caching strategies dramatically reduce repeated scan times. Cache vulnerability databases locally to avoid repeated downloads. Store scan results for unchanged components and reuse them across pipeline runs. Implement layer caching for container scans where unchanged layers skip rescanning. These caching strategies can reduce scan times by 80% or more for typical incremental changes.