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Securing the Cloud Cloud computing has become another key resource for IT deployments, but there is still fear of securing applications and data in the cloud 14 | February 2013

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hile companies certainly see a business benefit offers more flexibility, choice and agility. As more and to a pay-as-you-go model for computing more data, applications and infrastructure is moved resources, security concerns seem always to to the Cloud, security remains a top concern. This appear at the top of surveys regarding cloud computing. is one of the reasons for the slow adoption of this These concerns include authentication, authorization, concept in India. However, security concerns can be accounting (AAA) services; encryption; storage; security addressed with appropriate secure solutions to ensure breaches; regulatory compliance; location of data safe migration to the cloud. Dell provides security by and users; and other risks associated with isolating using a multi layer approach, offering scalable and affordable solutions to protect IT infrastructure from sensitive corporate data.

Add to this array of concerns the potential loss the end point device to the cloud,” he adds on.

As explained by Charu Verma an “Independent of control over your data, and the cloud model starts Researcher” in the domain to get a little scary. of cloud security. “I could No matter where your Cloud computing is one of the widely see a remarkable acceptance applications live in the cloud or how they are spoken about technologies in today’s of cloud technologies in market place. It is being served, one theme enterprise space, it has made substantial the widely accepted by the is consistent: You are hosting and delivering inroads in the industry. Organizations enterprises as one of the most valued initiative your critical data at a has undisputed third-party location, not are rapidly turning to the Cloud to which within your four walls, reduce costs, provide greater flexibility capability to transform the way value could be drawn and keeping that data and quickly ramp up support of business from IT & its delivery safe is a top priority. for business agility. Cloud According to Amit needs computing unleashes its Luthra, National value to the business as Manager, Storage & Networking Solutions Marketing, Dell India, while most flexible, agile & yet cost effective platform Cloud computing is one of the widely spoken about for next generation IT & its consumers. Like other technologies in today’s enterprise space, it has made revolutionary technologies, Cloud too brings in its substantial inroads in the industry. Organizations are own concerns & challenges. Security is one of these rapidly turning to the Cloud to reduce costs, provide challenges which needs some more brain work from greater flexibility and quickly ramp up support of decision makers before using or migrating IT services to the cloud today,” she adds on. business needs.

According to Ashish Mittal, Head GTM, Cloud, NEC “Cloud computing concept is catching on very fast and rightly so because it improves speed, quantity India,“We believe that cloud computing is becoming and quality of resources available to the organization. increasingly mainstream, and the adoption has spread from consumers to mid and small enterprises, and It can help any organization gain now deep into large enterprises also. Enterprises competitive advantage by have been users of CRM on Cloud for going beyond the limits of quite some time, and in traditional IT infrastructure “ C l o u d the past couple of and data centers and

computing concept is catching on very fast and rightly so because it improves speed, quantity and quality of resources available to the organization. It can help any organization gain competitive advantage by going beyond the limits of traditional IT infrastructure and data centers and offers more flexibility, choice and agility.”

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Amit Luthra, National Manager, Storage & Networking Solutions Marketing, Dell India

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I could see a remarkable acceptance of cloud technologies in the market place.

It is widely accepted by the enterprises as one of the most valued initiative which has undisputed capability to transform the way value could be drawn from IT & its delivery for business agility.

Cloud computing unleashes its value to the business as most flexible, agile & yet cost effective platform for be next generation IT & its consumers.” sure

years, it won't Charu Verma an “Independent Researcher” in the we have be stolen or misused? A domain of cloud security seen increased use of temporary solution is to email / collaboration, as encrypt sensitive data or to also a host of infrastructure work only with reputable cloud oriented services such as Compute, Video Conferencing, providers. But encryption algorithms have been broken Storage / Disaster Recovery, etc. While SaaS adoption before, and reputable companies have been compromised: is still limited to horizontal applications such as email Google and Rackspace, among many others, were and collaboration but enterprises have started using allegedly attacked by Chinese hackers in 2009. At the cloud by deploying private cloud and Infrastructure moment, there is no simple way to guarantee cloud as a Service. Cloud providers realize that the biggest security,” he adds on. concern their customers have had to adoption is According to Srikanth Karnakota, Director, Server and around security, and have invested significantly in Cloud Business, Microsoft, cloud is a very secure place. the last few years to enhance the security that “It is just like a bank where you keep your money.

Cloud services offer. In addition, because of the sheer In fact, it is much more secure than the internal economies of scale that a Cloud provider has, the environments of most offices. We are involved in level of investment required is much lesser than what building different types of cloud environments, including any enterprise will need to invest to achieve similar private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, etc. We used levels of security. We have seen that increasingly, the Windows 7.2 for private cloud and Windows 8 for customer is asking not about security, but about the public cloud. Customer can use his own private cloud overall processes being followed. We also believe that or he can opt for a public cloud depending upon his cloud is more secure than on-premise infrastructure needs,” he explains. because security is built at multiple levels in cloud infrastructure including The BYOD Challenge physical, network and data As being put by security. Cloud security can Issues like information confidentiality, Majmudar from Tunebasket, be compared to keeping integrity & compliance to the BYOD is a trade-off valuables in Bank lockers “You have to information security situation. versus storing these in- organization’s balance data security with house,” he adds on. convenience, policies are some of the major concerns employee As being put forward by engagement, and morale.

Mukul Majmudar, Founder identified by the business leaders. As far as I see it, the & CEO, Tunebasket, cloud decision of whether or not computing is a path of Adherence to legal & contractual terms to instate BYOD should least resistance for solving is added to the insecurity about security be made on a case-byour technological problems. case basis. For example, “In some cases, it is the in the cloud. if you are a bank or perfect solution; in others, financial institution with it would behoove us to highly secure data, BYOD is probably not for you. think more creatively. Security and privacy are the For many companies, however, it may be perfectly safe most obvious issues that come to mind. If I am to let employees work on their own devices, especially storing my sensitive personal information or deploying if it saves the company the high costs of purchasing proprietary corporate technology on the cloud, how can I devices for each and every employee. For example, 16 | February 2013

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a softwar a restrict deploymen devices,” As e information organizatio the major Adherence the insec data Secur rated as ‘Very Im impacting of cloud. have be advanceme OEMs & offering It has confidence enabled t more and apps & be pushed reap the out of it. witnessed adoption Services fo has been the develo & protoco security a & “Gover going forw relook into started wo benefits. I Security A security p business c Talking approach, believes en

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Cover Story a software company can allow BYOD and provide is no longer about the device or technology… a restricted test environment for its programmers; it’s about maximizing balance between end user deployment would be allowed only from safe company preferences, productivity and IT control; delivering a devices,” he adds on. seamless, secure and manageable end user experience As explained by Charu Verma, “Issues like that provides anywhere, anytime connectivity and information confidentiality, integrity & compliance to the access to work, play, learn, collaborate and connect. organization’s information security policies are some of “Dell’s legacy is built on helping organizations drive the major concerns identified by the business leaders. efficiency and extending the reach of technology for Adherence to legal & contractual terms is added to all. Dell is uniquely positioned to help organizations the insecurity about security in the cloud. Overall, worldwide manage this next generation of end user data Security & Privacy is computing with a breadth rated as a ‘Critical’ and of services expertise, ‘Very Important’ challenges Dell empowers CIOs to manage the hardware, software and impacting the adoption rate heterogeneous nature of IT by providing solutions. We help IT of cloud. However there say “yes,” to meet and solutions for improving exceed users’ expectations, have been tremendous end-to-end advancements made by also delivering the management by increasing IT efficiency while OEMs & Service Providers security and manageability offering cloud services. with centralized end point management, their business requires.

It has helped to build in line with our providing better security to ensure IP Keeping confidence in Enterprises & End User Computing of enabled them to identify and Data is safe from desktop to cloud maximizing end user more and more business productivity and IT apps & data that could and achieving productivity gains by control, Dell empowers be pushed into cloud to enabling anytime work from anywhere CIOs to manage the reap the maximum benefits heterogeneous nature of out of it. Off late market on any device.

IT by providing endwitnessed huge growth in to-end solutions for adoption rate of Cloud improving management Services for non-critical information in enterprises. There by increasing IT efficiency with centralized end has been significant effort made by innovators towards point management, providing better security to ensure the development of cloud friendly security architecture IP and Data is safe from desktop to cloud and & protocols. Development of multi layered cloud friendly achieving productivity gains by enabling anytime work security architecture across “Information Security, “Trust” from anywhere on any device. Dell enables this & “Governance” will make decision making little easier through Desktop Virtualization, Systems management going forward. Enterprises are now smart enough to and Data center solutions, storage and networking relook into the security threat imposed by the cloud & solutions. We believe in making efficient IT solutions started working towards a “trade-off” between risks & for organizations, which are innovative, scalable, open benefits. In the meanwhile initiatives like CSA (Cloud and faster. We have been doubling down on building Security Alliance) will keep coming out with standardized out our services like desktop virtualization, security security practices & protocols to add strength to the and device management to help companies manage business case,” she explains. all aspects of BYOD and the consumerization of Talking about Dell’s BYOD IT,’ Amit explains. approach, Amit says that Dell Talking about BYOD “ W e believes end user computing challenge, Ashish

believe that cloud computing is becoming increasingly mainstream, and the adoption has spread from consumers to mid and small enterprises, and now deep into large enterprises also. Enterprises have been users of CRM on Cloud for quite some time, and in the past couple of years, we have seen increased use of email / collaboration, as also a host of infrastructure oriented services such as Compute, Video Conferencing, Storage / Disaster Recovery, etc.”

Ashish Mittal, Head GTM, Cloud, NEC India

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Cover Story Mittal from NEC says that as organizations start attracting young talent, BYOD will be reality soon.

“In fact some of the enterprises have started pilots around BYOD. Currently securing external devices is challenge because the on-premise applications are not designed to be enforce common policies which can be managed centrally as security (such as authentication and authorization) are built within applications. Technologies such Open authentication, authorization, enforcing common policies on multiple application , and application access on web will be some of key consideration for mainstream adoption of BYOD,:” he adds on.

Putting his thoughts forward on BYOD, Srikanth Karnakota from Microsoft says that Cloud is much more secure compared to the security that exists in most of the internal environments companies have.

“We also build Disaster Recovery Management solutions into the cloud which add safety to the security. Nowadays tons of customers are using these cloud services. Security in the cloud is no longer an issue. It is just a matter of Cost-Benefit analysis for individuals as well as businesses while using the cloud. Yes, many organizations have concerns about the security associated with BYOD, because certain data is in the possession of the employees when they are outside the office. But now they are many solutions that help to manage data that the employees access and store with them. These solutions will allow the employee to access only certain data that he is authorized to access. Hence BYOD does not add any extra element of insecurity,” he explains.

enforced standards are on the horizon (compare this with strict environmental requirements for factories or financial regulation for banks). Indeed, regulation is frequently a consequence of systemic failure.

Until recently, most cloud providers used their own proprietary technology and there was significant scope for security flaws as well as vendor lock-in; migrating from one cloud provider to another was almost impossible. But recently, many companies have joined hands and tried to come up with a mutually agreed "standard" for cloud computing, hoping to improve the security and interoperability of the entire cloud computing space. OpenStack and CloudStack are two such efforts, supported by many big companies. It remains to be seen how wide the consolidation can span, and there is still a long way to go, but these efforts are certainly a step in the right direction.

Until such a standard becomes pervasive, we need to be careful as cloud service consumers about how we utilize the cloud. It would be prudent to stick with reputable and proven companies such as Amazon or Rackspace,” Majmudar explains.

Explaining the cloud offering, Amit from Dell says that most of the customers understand both the immediate and the long term advantages of adopting the cloud.

“Cloud is their future.

Their challenge is how they can get there with the least disruption to their organization.

At Dell we believe that each customer will have a different path to the cloud but whatever that is, cloud should work for them, not the other way around. Our customers want a provider that is easy to do business with and that helps them get what they want when they want it.

Dell offers a highly simplified path to the cloud though solutions built on a foundation of Open, Integrated and Secure Cloud.

We help our customers take a pragmatic approach when adopting cloud, adopt cloud as a business strategy and not a technology, and give IT back time and money to drive business innovation,” he adds on.

The Cloud Offerings “At Tunebasket, we're building a music player for Android and PC that can wirelessly sync music across your different devices. We use Amazon S3 for storing song data and Linode cloud servers for serving our application.

Fast-moving technology “ I n coupled with slow-moving government makes it some cases, it is almost certain the perfect solution; that no legallyin others, it would behoove

Proceeding into the Cloud with Caution Most

us to think more creatively. Security and privacy are the most obvious issues that come to mind. If I am storing my sensitive personal information or deploying proprietary corporate technology on the cloud, how can I be sure it won’t be stolen or misused? A temporary solution is to encrypt sensitive data or to work only with reputable cloud providers.”

Mukul Majmudar, Founder & CEO, Tunebasket

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“It is just like a bank where you keep your money. In fact, it is much more secure than the internal environments of most offices. We are involved in building different types of cloud environments, including private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, etc. We used Windows 7.2 for private cloud and Windows 8 for public cloud. Customer can use his own private cloud or he can opt for a public cloud depending upon his needs,”

points early Srikanth Karnakota, Director, Server and Cloud in the adopters Business, Microsoft cloud. began to test hosting in the cloud The Role of Application using non-critical data.

Delivery Performance, scalability, Given that the and shared resources OpenStack and CloudStack are two ultimate goal of any were the primary focus such efforts, supported by many big cloud, regardless of of initial cloud offerings. model or location, is While this is still a companies. It remains to be seen how to deliver applications major attraction, cloud wide the consolidation can span, and in the most efficient, computing has matured and established itself as there is still a long way to go, but these agile, and secure way possible, specific solutions yet another option for efforts are certainly a step in the right are relevant when it IT, more data—including sensitive data—is making direction. Until such a standard becomes comes to building out cloud infrastructure. its way to the cloud. pervasive, we need to be careful as cloud This is particularly The problem is that you since application really don’t know where service consumers about how we utilize true delivery requires the in the cloud the data is the cloud.

It would be prudent to stick same strategic points of at any given moment. control that the dynamic IT departments are with reputable and proven compnies such control plane of cloud already anxious about the as Amazon or Rackspace. architecture necessitates, confidentiality and integrity and it must provide of sensitive data; hosting the same capability to this data in the cloud intercept, interpret, and instruct. highlights not only concerns about protecting critical While a cloud certainly requires a variety of data in a third-party location but also role-based components to create an environment capable of access control to that data for normal business providing scalability, the infrastructure solutions that functions.

Organizations are beginning to realize that the pertain to application delivery are germane to an cloud does not lend itself to static security controls. area of expertise. These infrastructure solutions provide Like all other elements within cloud architecture, the scalability, extensibility, adaptability, manageability, security must be integrated into a centralized, security, mobility, and real-time performance required dynamic control plane. In the cloud, security in the dynamic control plane.

Cloud computing, while quickly evolving, can offer solutions must have the capability to intercept all data traffic, interpret its context, and then make IT departments a powerful alternative for delivering appropriate decisions about that traffic, including applications. Cloud computing promises scalable, oninstructing other cloud elements how to handle it. demand resources; flexible, self-serve deployment; lower The cloud requires the ability to apply global policies TCO; faster time to market; and a multitude of and tools that can migrate with, and control access service options that can host your entire infrastructure, to, the applications and data as they move from be a part of your infrastructure, or simply serve a data center to cloud—and as they travel to other single application.

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