2010年3月9日 星期二

Newsbank - Hybrid Clouds Hit Data Centers

Charlotte Dunlap met with Raimund and then with Andy Dancer at RSA last week. Though I think she as a few minor errors in this, Raimund and Andy’s inputs were key drivers behind this story.

Roger

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/08/cloud-computing-security-technology-virtualization10-hybrid.html

Hybrid Clouds Hit Data Centers

Charlotte Dunlap, 03.08.10, 06:00 PM EST

Merging public and private cloud computing infrastructures.

There was much buzz about merging public and private cloud infrastructures at last week's RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. As enterprises use virtualization to step up the creation of private clouds around their data centers, security vendors are working to steer customers toward merging private and public clouds for a hybrid cloud approach.

Some security and infrastructure providers realize that private clouds are an important first step toward increasingly moving customer workloads to public clouds as the technology and security catches up.

Private cloud infrastructures are necessary for companies that are regulated under compliance mandates, but CIOs see the value of being able to tap public cloud services for obvious reasons: lower total cost of ownership (TCO), simplified management and access to dynamic global threat intelligence, i.e., malware alerts. Of course, enterprises are still very concerned about the security, reliability and governance issues associated with public clouds, but CIOs are going to be hearing a lot more about hybrid or internal/external cloud options in coming months as a way to appease concerns.

An example of a hybrid cloud solution is the merging of an internally built or private cloud infrastructure with a security vendor's public network of threat intelligence. Examples of global threat intelligence delivered through public cloud services include Trend Micro's Smart Protection Network and Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ) Ironport SenderBase Security Network.

Over the past year security vendors have focused their cloud messaging primarily around Software-as-a-Service offerings targeting specific pain points, such as secure messaging, namely anti-spam. CIOs should anticipate more vendor messaging focused around hybrid cloud computing, targeting those large enterprises--not to mention European customers--that are required under governance to keep company data within the folds of the private cloud infrastructure. Security service providers are acknowledging customers' need to keep data in-house, but they're also providing options to couple private with public infrastructures and allow customers to off-load more of the security burden.

Later this year Trend Micro has plans to expand its private cloud services to include new protocols, such as Web reputation. Trend Micro says it will create a private cloud within the public cloud to let customers store confidential data, a prospect which will likely be most attractive to Internet service providers.

Establishing hybrid cloud scenarios among enterprise customers paves the way for vendors to gradually go after greenfield opportunities where they can promote their public cloud services among applications where risks are less likely for the customer.

CIOs should consider a few things pertaining to the management of data centers:

--Look for a hybrid cloud strategy from infrastructure/security providers.

--Look at security providers with leading global intelligence networks.

--Consider how applications running in the public cloud integrate with existing management systems.

--Consider what workloads may eventually be candidates to outsource to public cloud infrastructures via a hybrid cloud model.

Charlotte Dunlap is an independent security analyst

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