Security
and Automation in the Cloud
One
of the biggest concerns IT managers have about moving business-critical
applications into the cloud and away from the data center is the issue of
security. What you may not realize, however, is that the same tools for
automation and provisioning that function in cloud implementations also offer a
significant opportunity to improve security.
Public
vs. private clouds
The
first concern, of course, is whether the cloud in question is private or public.
If you’re using a public cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services, you know
you’re looking at Level 1 PCI DSS compliance. If you’re running a cloud solution
in-house, however, you need to make sure you’re handling all of that security
via firewalls and network and storage management.
Public
cloud solutions also require different security and automation models. You need
to give more heed to firewalls, NAT, load balancers, and other related issues.
This doesn’t mean public cloud solutions aren’t worth it, of course. They still
provide increased efficiency, scalability, and even security.
Benefits
of making provisioning automated
Cloud
solutions that automate server configuration during the provisioning process
improve security in cloud environments. You might have literally thousands of
VMs, each of which would require individual setup and maintenance without
automated provisioning. Automated provisioning reduces your costs, increases
your agility, and creates a standardized environment that is less vulnerable to
security issues than non-automated environments.
Virtualized,
embedded security
The
nature of a virtual machine is such that every security measure you place at the
virtual server are naturally replicated. That means that, as you
expand your use of a private cloud solution, you have the ability to
automatically embed security measures with each new VM as it is
created.
Management
is the key here. If this aspect isn’t handled correctly, you can create a wide
array of variant server images, each with different security measures in place.
This creates something of a security nightmare.
Making
use of automation in cloud solutions in order to make certain your servers are
in compliance with all necessary security measures should be one of the key
tasks your cloud computing staffs deals with on a regular basis.
For
further information visit: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.
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