By Jack Chan, Cloud Cyber Security Specialist, Fortinet
Enterprises have rapidly incorporated cloud computing over the last decade, and that trend only seems to be accelerating. Private cloud infrastructure, including virtualisation and software-defined networking (SDN), is in the process of transforming on-premise data centres, which host the majority of enterprise server workloads around the world. Enterprises are also embracing public clouds at an unprecedented rate, with most connecting back to on-premise environments to create a true hybrid cloud environment. For all their advantages, these accelerated infrastructural changes also raise major concerns about security, and the ability to protect end-users and sensitive data from ever-evolving cyber threats.
As today’s enterprise data centres evolve from static internal environments to a mix of private, public, and hybrid clouds, organisations need to augment traditional firewalls and security appliances (deployed for north-south traffic at the network edge) with expanded protection for east-west traffic moving laterally across the network, both within internal networks and across clouds.
To maintain a strong security posture in private, public, and hybrid clouds, organisations need to increase and perhaps even reallocate security to keep pace with these more dynamic, distributed, and fast-paced environments. Here are some specific areas to consider:
Scalability
Cloud computing enables the rapid development and delivery of highly scalable applications. Security needs to be equally elastic to scale with the cloud infrastructure itself and to provide transparent protection without slowing down the business.
Today’s cloud environments require ultra-fast physical firewalls that provide highly scalable north-south data centre firewall and network security protection at the edge of the private cloud. They also need virtual firewalls that provide north-south protection for public clouds. And they need virtual firewalls that provide east-west protection for data and transactions moving between devices in the cloud. High-performance firewalls and network security appliances need to scale vertically to meet volume and performance demands, and laterally to seamlessly track and secure data from IoT/endpoints, across the distributed network/data centre, and into the cloud…Click HERE to read full article.
