Hybrid Cloud Security: 5 Key Considerations
Hybrid cloud is the best way to go, say IT specialists. Research is steadily backing up the theory. In its fifth annual State of the Cloud survey, RightScale found hybrid cloud adoption grew 13 percent, year-over-year. This growth occurs after public cloud users decided to dip their toes into private cloud resource pools.
The idea behind hybrid cloud computing is combining on-premise resources with public cloud platforms. Doing this, you can dynamically alternate workloads between both environments. In a perfect world, it results in greater flexibility and more efficient IT services. You know what they say about perfect worlds, though. They simply don’t exist in real life. Something always gets in the way. Hybrid cloud security might be the biggest roadblock.
Hybrid cloud security means that all on-premise resources are fully protected. This includes securing the various mobile devices that connect to both the private and public sides of the cloud. All the while you have to hope your service provider comes through on maintaining a secure, compliant-friendly service on their end of the deal. With so many angles to cover, there simply is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Here’s a list of what you should consider, when looking at hybrid cloud security.
IT security specialists require a specific skillset in order to thrive in a hybrid environment. Transparency and visibility are critical in this setting. Experts must adopt unconvetional skills. For example, IT experts who can thoroughly monitor and audit third-party cloud systems with compliance in mind can be worth their value in gold. Getting the right balance between traditional and forward-thinking expertise is a tremendous luxury to have.
A public cloud platform should function much like you’d expect your own infrastructure to operate. Vendors monitor the environment and maintain detailed logs of all activities. If a security breach or even suspicious activity is detected, the vendor alerts the customer, who can follow up accordingly.
Vendor alerts are one thing. Acting on what you see is another. The customer needs to follow up on the findings and alert their own security team. Looking at analytics, organizations can pair logs, alerts and data from other applications for a more comprehensive view. Hybrid cloud security tightens another couple notches when you routinely monitor both sides of the fence.
Service level agreements have long been a hot potato in cloud computing talk. Between the vague language and confusion over what “99.95 percent uptime” really means, users are understandably frustrated. But things are looking up, thanks to hybrid cloud.
