SDDC Security Tools of the Future

The software-defined data center (SDDC) requires a new breed of security tools that not only handle the velocity of data being generated within a secure hybrid cloud but also handle the volume and variety of data. In fact, this new breed of security tools uses big data backends to manage the data being received, though …

News: HyTrust Acquires HighCloud Security

We have written before about HyTrust and its growing ecosystem of partners, but now HyTrust has acquired HighCloud Security, a provider of encryption and key management for the virtual and IaaS environments. HyTrust provides control and visibility into actions by virtualization administrators within a VMware vSphere or vCloud environment. With the acquisition of HighCloud Security, HyTrust now adds data privacy to its suite of tools. Initially, HighCloud Security’s encryption and key management will be separate products, but there are many ways in which the technologies can be combined. The purchase changes HyTrust’s unique stance in the industry.

Hybrid Cloud Security Is Bastionless (or "Who Moved My Moat!")

When we look at the Secure Hybrid Cloud, we notice a few things immediately, such as the need to look at how the data is moving, where the users are going, and the fact that they may never touch the data center component of the cloud at all. Our worldview has to change to be more user-, app-, and data-centric. Hybrid cloud security fails if we continue to consider our data center protections enough, as the bastions have moved and we may not know how that happened.

HyTrust Expanding Role in Secure Hybrid Cloud

HyTrust released their version 3.5 of their virtualization security proxy and compliance tool. This tool is core to a growing ecosystem of partners and systems. HyTrust has also expanded its role within the Secure Hybrid Cloud by covering more of what is traditionally part of the data center. HyTrust is a proxy that sits between an administrator and sensitive systems by providing advanced role based access controls but also advanced logging. With HyTrust fronting your VMware vSphere environment, HP ILO, Cisco UCS UIM, Nexus Switches, administrators gain a fine grain level of control over actions, improved logging in these environments, and the ability to vault critical passwords.

Security Questions from VMworld 2013

While at VMworld 2013, I started to ask 5 security questions that have been bothering me for some time now. Some of these questions apparently have no answers currently and others only have operational answers, no technology. Security of a secure hybrid cloud is a mix of procedures, policies, operations, and technology. These questions are about various aspects of virtual and cloud environments that have been nagging at me for some time now as well as problems I have faced managing our own cloud instances. Perhaps you have questions you would like to add to the list, if so please share.

Logging within the Secure Hybrid Cloud

When we think of logging within the secure hybrid cloud, we tend to think of analytics, but there is more to logging than just reviewing the data there are also discussions on what to collect and from where as well as why collect the data? For security purposes we may start with collecting access data and work out from there, but most logs from complex systems such as a secure hybrid cloud include many different forms of log data and in some cases, not enough. Perhaps what log data you can retrieve may be a deciding point for hybrid cloud services as logs are used not only for audit purposes, but also for trouble shooting and forensics. What log data do you collect within your secure hybrid cloud?