Cloud computing has moved beyond the early adopter phase and is now mainstream. While the cloud industry is well-prepared, offering robust security resources to cloud customers, enterprises have to understand their own needs and the specific security functions they require from their cloud solution.
The technical and business advantages of moving to the cloud are well established by now; the ability to dynamically scale network capacity as demand changes, reduction in the capital expenditure associated with implementing, maintaining and staffing a physical data centre, and being able to let employees share data anytime, anywhere and on any device. Among organisations who are yet to adopt the cloud, key concerns come down to two factors: a reluctance to put trusted data on a network that’s not on the premises, and confusion around the costs and complexity of moving to the cloud.
Frank Mong, senior vice president of product, industry and solutions for Palo Alto Networks, offers three points of consideration for organisation wanting to make the move to the cloud.
WHEN IT COMES TO SECURITY, THE CLOUD IS READY
Cybersecurity remains the number one roadblock keeping organisations from making the shift to cloud. And while this may always be a concern, when it comes to the cloud, the industry is well-prepared. Leading cloud providers have made significant investments in securing their cloud environments and offer robust security resources to cloud customers.
Cloud providers are also building an expansive ecosystem of security technology partners who can provide cybersecurity solutions for the public cloud and Software-as-a-Service. These solutions, if implemented as a cohesive platform and not an ad hoc collection of security devices that don’t work well together, can provide a consistent and seamless security experience to both cloud-based and physical networks through consistent visibility, policy, and enforcement across the network regardless of a user’s location.
IS YOUR ORGANISATION READY FOR THE CLOUD?
Specifically, have you or your security team completed the necessary due diligence to identify the specific security functions required by your cloud solution? Leading cloud providers can support several native services that provide log and network flow information that are highly configurable and powerful tools.
Partnering with the right cloud provider can offer a flexible, secure and reliable way to quickly and easily leverage cloud technologies without sacrificing security, visibility, support, and long-term operational scale.
HYBRID CLOUD
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, there are many advantages to implementing a hybrid solution. The cloud is highly iterative, and new technologies and capabilities provide customers with real-time data that can be used to improve security. Many of the technologies used to secure physical data centres like next-generation firewalls, and threat intelligence subscriptions can easily be applied to new cloud-based networks to seamlessly protect data as it moves between physical and cloud-based data centres.
Sticking to a single security platform in a hybrid scenario is important for consistent visibility, policy enforcement and automated reprogramming of security technology regardless of location, existing network or new public cloud segments. A security platform that supports cloud integration is critical in ensuring there are no gaps in the overall security posture, especially visibility that could be exploited to penetrate network defences.
For more information on this article, visit the original post at Palo Alto here.
blueAPACHE are a Palo Alto Networks premier partner and integrate their next generation firewalls at the core of our cloud, network and managed service solutions. To learn how you can leverage cloud technology to your business advantage and understand your options for cloud, on-premise and endpoint security, contact the blueAPACHE account team.