How Private Cloud as a Service Can Help Your Security Posture

danhoudek

How Private Cloud as a Service Can Help Your Security Posture

Cloud computing has transformed how organizations need to think about securing their data and assets. As businesses continue to adopt cloud-based initiatives to support artificial intelligence, internet of things, big data and more, they remain apprehensive about protecting critical assets. After all, as our Chief Operations and Product Officer David Meredith noted in a post kicking off National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, cybersecurity remains a top concern among organizations moving to the cloud. To assuage these concerns, some organizations are building  on-premises private clouds. After all, such clouds can offer greater flexibility and agility than the public cloud, finer grained control of data and the ability to address industry-specific compliance needs. All that additional control  offers the potential, at least, for greater security. But do-it-yourself private clouds come with their own set of security challenges and risks. Just because a cloud is private or located in an on-premise data center does not mean it’s any more secure than a public cloud. In fact, unless you’ve staffed a dedicated team of highly trained cybersecurity analysts, chances are decent that a DIY private cloud is more vulnerable than a hyperscale public cloud. At Rackspace, where we’ve been investing in cloud security for two decades, we regularly see companies failing to keep their DIY private clouds secure. Simply put, when you shift to a private cloud environment, more responsibility is placed in your organization’s hands; without proper staffing, resources and expertise, it may be impossible to keep your environment secure. There is an alternative to hiring an army of security experts: partnering with Rackspace. We’re a managed service provider with a difference: we offer private cloud as a service on each of the leading private clouds: VMware, Microsoft and OpenStack. Just as consumers are transforming the way transportation, food and entertainment are delivered, businesses too, are turning to service providers to have their infrastructure and security needs met. All of these “as-a-service” models have one thing in common — they focus on the end product, eliminate the worry about how the end product is delivered or created. The reason “as-a-service” offerings are thriving is because they do a superior job of solving customer problems and enabling opportunities. Consuming  private cloud as a service  can reduce security risks and help your organization meet internal or industry compliance with dedicated cybersecurity and private cloud expertise that understands the global, cross-platform nature of the cloud. For example, we understand that vulnerabilities can occur during day-to-day IT chores, which is why we offer resources to monitor your entire cloud stack, from infrastructure through operating system all the way to the application layer.  Our 24x7x365 support includes policy updates, patches and even the introduction of new technologies. To many IT professionals, this may sound like table stakes, yet a recent survey by Palo Alto Networks of 400,000 IT professionals found the biggest threat to cloud security is the misconfiguration of cloud platforms, followed by unauthorized access through misuse of employee credentials and improper access controls and insecure interfaces/APIs. As one of our resident VMware security experts, Luke Huckaba notes, many of the key threats to private cloud security happen from within the organization or behind the firewall. Not having a properly configured private cloud, or one that lacks the current patches to plug known vulnerabilities is security disaster waiting to happen.  Once an attacker gets behind the firewall, they have access to all the networks behind the firewall. Without a way to easily lock down your network, it will be tough to meet certain compliance standards, like PCI, an industry standard measure used by the major credit card companies. At Rackspace, we're obsessed with our customers’ success, and that includes ensuring the right security measures are in place through our private cloud offerings:

If your organization is ready to stop fretting about IT security and start innovating, consider Rackspace Private Cloud as a Service, which offers greater security and compliance across your organization.