Cloud Security

Maximize Flexibility and Cost Savings

Cloud computing has the power to transform your company with the flexible delivery of computer resources across your business. Not only can you quickly deploy and scale computing services on demand, you’ll end up saving costs with more effective resource usage. At the same time, putting applications and data in the cloud is one of the easiest ways to ensure anywhere, anytime access in a world of consumerized mobile devices. And by using cloud-based protection you can get security that’s just as fast and easy—with the bonus of improved speed and accuracy of your defenses.

To maximize the rewards of the cloud without compromising your data privacy and security, you’ll need protection that reduces your risk while maintaining compliance and controlling costs.

• Private—With dedicated hardware, private clouds can be on-premise or through a service provider and offer more control, customization, and security than public clouds, but with less scalability and cost savings.
• Public—A public cloud consists of computing resources offered by a service provider through a multi-tenant or shared infrastructure.
• Hybrid—Combining a private cloud and a public cloud creates a hybrid cloud. This can be on-going or used only when additional computer resources are needed on a short-term basis.
• Consumerization—Using personal endpoint devices for work creates a consumerization of IT resources. These devices access the cloud for consumer and work applications as well as IT support and security.
• Cloud-based Security—The cloud can be used to deploy security providing easy and fast access to protection.

Deliver Computer Services with Speed and Agility

You can automate the delivery of computer resources throughout your company with a private cloud. A self-service portal allows your different business units to quickly deploy needed computer services. And because it is based on dedicated hardware, a private cloud provides more control, customization, and security than a public cloud.

But private clouds also increase risk of data leakage through increased access, an elastic perimeter, mobility of data, and potential data remnants. When creating a private cloud, you must first secure the underlying virtual environment. Then you need to consider protection such as self-defending VM security that travels with a virtual machine into the more mobile cloud infrastructure.

Increase Scalability, Accessibility, and Cost Savings

Many companies choose the public cloud for its cost savings, ease of deployment, and considerable scalability. In a public cloud, computer resources are offered by a service provider through a multi-tenant infrastructure. So you can quickly configure, deploy, or expand your services online and only pay for the resources you use. And because the service provider owns the hardware, you get the additional perk of converting CAPEX expenses to OPEX for increased savings.

But with increased benefits also comes increased risk. Within the shared infrastructure of the public cloud, you have less control and more exposure to outside threats. Sure you can address these risks with data protection and encryption technologies. But you may not be responsible for security in the public cloud, which falls to either you or your service provider, depending on the type of public cloud service you choose.

Combine On-site Control with Cloud Vendor Scalability

Get the best of both worlds with a hybrid cloud. Combining the onsite control of a private cloud with the scalability of the public cloud may be the best approach for your company. This combined approach lets you keep more mission-critical data and applications in house while leveraging the cost savings of the public cloud for storage and temporary compute capacity needs.

Regardless of how you use a hybrid cloud, you’ll have to be vigilant about securing your data as it spans both private and public infrastructures. By using the right data protection and encryption technologies, you may be able to put more in the public cloud than you think. But ultimately how you deploy cloud computing should be tailored to meet your unique needs in terms of IT resources, compliance, and business objectives.

Embrace Consumerization for Increased Agility and Productivity

Personal PCs, tablets, and smartphones have become more affordable and intuitive, and give us all immediate access to an abundance of content and applications. No one loves this flexibility more than the employees you are trying to secure—the ones who want to use the same devices in both their personal and professional lives. You simply can’t stop it at this point. It’s inevitable. And IT managers everywhere are being asked (if not demanded) to support and
secure consumerization.

The cloud is one of the driving forces behind consumerization, with mobile devices accessing data from work clouds, social networking, or other cloud applications. But the cloud can also help you safely embrace consumerization with Mobile Device Management (MDM), cloud-based security, device locator services, remote wipes for lost or stolen devices, and more. Using the cloud to safely support consumerization in your workplace can help your business unlock opportunities. And everyone’s happy when you increase productivity, attract and retain good employees, and gain greater business agility.

Leverage Cloud-based Security for Faster, Lighter, More Flexible Protection

Security for the cloud is ideal for protecting your private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. But you can also get security from the cloud. That’s right. Cloud-based security delivers faster threat intelligence, lighter weight solutions, and better protection both on and off the network. For example, reputation services can correlate email, web, and file threat information in the cloud and block threats before they even think of entering your network.

Yes. Perimeter defense is still important. But with today’s mobile devices and cloud computing you need protection that travels with your data. Best case scenario: combine threat protection with data protection in the cloud and you can see context-aware data usage—who, what, where, and when. You can then arm yourself with customized data usage profiles to create policies or detect possible data breaches, even from advanced persistent threats, zero-day malware,
or targeted attacks.

You can experience the power of this security from the cloud in a complete hosted security solution, such as Software as a Service (SaaS) security. Or you can deploy it strategically as cloud-based security components integrated with an on-site solution, such as reputation services for endpoint, email, or web security. Either way, cloud-based security makes it easy to access the protection you need.