Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | July 13, 2023
Stay ahead of the curve and navigate the complex landscape of regulatory obligations to safeguard data in cloud. Explores the challenges of maintaining compliance and strategies for risk mitigation.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. 3 Essential Regulatory Requirements
2.1 Before migration
2.2. During migration
2.3. After migration
3. Challenges in Ensuring Compliance in Infrastructure as a Service in Cloud Computing
3.1. Shared Responsibility Model
3.2. Data Breach
3.3. Access Mismanagement
3.4. Audit and Monitoring Challenges
4. Strategies for Addressing Compliance Challenges in IaaS
4.1. Risk Management and Assessment
4.2. Encryption and Collaboration with Cloud Service Providers
4.3. Contractual Agreements
4.4. Compliance Monitoring and Reporting
5. Conclusion
1. Introduction
Ensuring Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) compliance in security is crucial for organizations to meet regulatory requirements and avoid potential legal and financial consequences. However, several challenges must be addressed before and after migration to the cloud. This article provides an overview of the regulatory requirements in cloud computing, explores the challenges faced in ensuring compliance in IaaS, a cloud implementation service and provides strategies for addressing these challenges to ensure a successful cloud migration.
2. 3 Essential Regulatory Requirements
When adopting cloud infrastructure as a service, organizations must comply with regulatory requirements before, during, and after migration to the cloud. This ensures avoiding the challenges, firms may face later and suggest solutions if they do so.
2.1 Before migration:
Organizations must identify the relevant regulations that apply to their industry and geographic location. This includes: Data Protection Laws, Industry-Specific Regulations, and International Laws.
2.2. During migration:
Organizations must ensure that they meet regulatory requirements while transferring data and applications to the cloud. This involves: Ensuring proper access management, data encryption, and data residency requirements.
2.3. After migration:
Organizations must continue to meet regulatory requirements through ongoing monitoring and reporting. This includes: Regularly reviewing and updating security measures, ensuring proper data protection, and complying with audit and reporting requirements.
3. Challenges in Ensuring Compliance in Infrastructureas a Service in Cloud Computing
3.1. Shared Responsibility Model
The lack of control over the infrastructure in IaaS cloud computing is caused by the shared responsibility model of IaaS, where the cloud service provider is responsible for the IaaS security while the customer is responsible for securing the data and applications they store and run in the cloud. According to a survey, 22.8% of respondents cited the lack of control over infrastructure as a top concern for cloud security. (Source: Cloud Security Alliance)
3.2. Data Breach
Data breaches have serious consequences for businesses, including legal and financial penalties, damage to their reputation, and the loss of customer trust. The location of data and the regulations governing its storage and processing create challenges for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions. The global average total cost of a data breach increased by USD 0.11 million to USD 4.35 million in 2022, the highest it's been in the history of this report. The increase from USD 4.24 million in the 2021 report to USD 4.35 million in the 2022 report represents a 2.6% increase. (Source: IBM)
3.3. Access Mismanagement
Insider threats, where authorized users abuse their access privileges, can be a significant challenge for access management in IaaS. This includes the intentional or accidental misuse of credentials or non-protected infrastructure and the theft or loss of devices containing sensitive data. The 2020 data breach investigations report found that over 80% of data breaches were caused by compromised credentials or human error, highlighting the importance of effective access management. (Source: Verizon)
3.4. Audit and Monitoring Challenges
Large volumes of alerts overwhelm security teams, leading to fatigue and missed alerts, which result in non-compliance or security incidents going unnoticed. Limited resources may also make it challenging to effectively monitor and audit infrastructure as a service cloud environment, including the implementation and maintenance of monitoring tools.
4. Strategies for Addressing Compliance Challenges in IaaS
4.1. Risk Management and Assessment
Risk Assessment and Management includes conducting a risk assessment, including assessing risks related to data security, access controls, and regulatory compliance. It also involves implementing risk mitigation measures to address identified risks, like additional security measures or access controls such as encryption or multi-factor authentication.
4.2. Encryption and Collaboration with Cloud Service Providers
Encryption can be implemented at the application, database, or file system level, depending on the specific needs of the business. In addition, businesses should establish clear service level agreements with their cloud service provider related to data protection. This includes requirements for data security, access controls, and backup and recovery processes.
4.3. Contractual Agreements
The agreement should also establish audit and compliance requirements, including regular assessments of access management controls and policies. Using contractual agreements, organizations help ensure that they are clearly defined and that the cloud service provider is held accountable for implementing effective access management controls and policies.
4.4. Compliance Monitoring and Reporting
Monitoring and Reporting involves setting up automated monitoring and reporting mechanisms that track compliance with relevant regulations and standards and generate reports. They should also leverage technologies such as intrusion detection and prevention systems, security information and event management (SIEM) tools, and log analysis tools to collect, analyze, and report on security events in real time.
5. Conclusion
In accordance with the increasing prevalence of data breaches and the growing complexity of regulatory requirements, maintaining a secure and compliant cloud environment will be crucial for businesses to build trust with customers and avoid legal and financial risks. Addressing these requirements, the cloud helps companies maintain data privacy, avoid legal risks, and build customer trust. Organizations create a secure and compliant cloud environment that meets their needs by overcoming challenges and implementing best practices, working closely with cloud service providers. Ultimately, by prioritizing compliance and investing in the necessary resources and expertise, businesses can navigate these challenges and unlock the full potential of the cloud with confidence.
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Application Infrastructure, Application Storage
Article | July 19, 2023
With the regular increase of data in both cloud and organizations, a way to tackle these data and extract valuable insights is highly in demand. Although there are multiple tools available in the market not all of them can provide a complete resolution.
Developed in 2003, Slunk has become the ideal tool for numerous businesses across the globe. It is a software platform that is popular for searching, monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing data in real-time. Slunk performs operations such as gathering, interpreting, and coordinating data to create alerts, dashboards, and graphs instantaneously.
Why Splunk?
1. Business Flexibility
It improves the way people around organizations identify, predict, and solve problems simultaneously. It helps in answering questions for every part of the business, be it DevOps, IT, or Business Development. It offers capabilities to detect, visualize and collaborate anytime.
2. Enhance Digitization
Splunk assists businesses in ensuring the success of their digitization with its artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solutions.
3. New Opportunities
No matter how much data you have gathered, Splunk will help in scaling according to the data volume. It does that with the ecosystem provided by its partners and services.
4. Data-To-Everything
It is a platform that enables businesses to detect, monitor, analyze, and work with both structured and unstructured data regardless of their source and timescale. It allows users to ask any question related to insights and take actions accordingly.
5. Fast & Flexible
The time to value can be sped up to two days. Companies can deploy in increasing capacity within two days and retrieve their data as long as 90 days. Moreover, the upgrades and updates are handled by the team for them.
6. Maximize Value
The subscribers of Splunk do not have to manage infrastructure and they do not even need one. As a service, it offers scarce and valuable resources as required for better performance.
7. Robust Security
Splunk is certified and authorized by ISO 27001 and FedRAMP. They proffer dedicated cloud environments with encryption to the customer for robust security as well.
Apart from these major advantages, Splunk also grants incredible GUI, reduces troubleshooting time, real-time dashboard visibility, incorporates AI in data strategy, monitors business metrics, powerful visualization, and search. Some of the crucial features of Splunk include development & testing, faster ROI generation, developing real-time data applications, and real-time architecture stats & reports.
Be Ready for Splunk-Based Cloud Infra Maintenance
At its core, Splunk is an efficient tool for data aggregation that comes with versatile search functionality. Any business can get started with Splunk depending on certain needs they have for data-set monitoring and management. It allows users to take a highly effective data wealth that is pulled from different sources like websites, apps, or IoT.
All that is needed to do is getting started with Splunk-based applications for which you can hire developers with relevant knowledge and experience.
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Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, Windows Systems and Network
Article | July 11, 2023
Firms face challenges with managing their resources, and ensuring security & cost optimization, adding complexity to their operations. IaaS solves this need to maintain and manage IT infrastructure.
Contents
1. Infrastructure as a Service: Future of Cloud Computing
2. Upcoming Trends in IaaS
2.1 The Rise of Edge Computing
2.2 Greater Focus on Security
2.3 Enhancement in Serverless Architecture
2.4 Evolution of Green Computing
2.5 Emergence of Containerization
3. Final Thoughts
1. Infrastructure as a Service: Future of Cloud Computing
As digital transformation continues to reshape the business landscape, cloud computing is emerging as a critical enabler for companies of all sizes. With infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), businesses can outsource their hardware and data center management to a third-party provider, freeing up resources and allowing them to focus on their core competencies, reducing operational costs while maintaining the agility to adapt to changing market conditions.
With the increasing need for scalable computing solutions, IaaS is set to become a pivotal player in shaping the future of computing. IaaS is already emerging as a prominent solution for organizations looking to modernize their computing capabilities. This article will delve into the recent trends of IaaS and its potential impact on the computing industry, implying why IaaS is important for emerging businesses.
2. Upcoming Trends in IaaS
2.1 The Rise of Edge Computing
The rise in IoT and mobile computing has led to a challenge in the amount of data that can be transferred across a network in a certain period.
Due to its many uses, such as improving reaction times for self-driving cars and safeguarding confidential health information, the market for edge computing infrastructure is expected to reach a value of $450 billion.
(Source: CB Insights)
Edge computing is a technology that enables data processing to occur closer to its origin, thereby reducing the volume of data that needs to be transmitted to and from the cloud.
A mesh network of micro data centers that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data center or cloud storage repository in a footprint of less than 100 square feet.
(Source: IDC)
Edge computing represents the fourth major paradigm shift in modern computing, following mainframes, client/server models, and the cloud. A hybrid architecture of interconnected IaaS services allows for low latency through edge computing and high performance, security, and flexibility through a private cloud. Connecting edge devices to an IaaS platform streamlines location management and enables remote work, thus looking forward to smoother future of IaaS.
An edge layer (fog computing) is required to optimize the architecture model with high-speed and reliable 5G connectivity, connecting edge devices with the cloud. This layer acts as autonomous distributed nodes, capable of analyzing and acting on real-time data. Doing so sends only the data required to the central infrastructure in an IaaS instance. By combining the advantages of edge computing in data capture with the storage and processing capabilities of the cloud, companies can take full advantage of the benefits of data analytics to leverage their innovation and optimization capabilities while simultaneously and effectively managing IoT devices on the edge.
IoT devices, also known as edge devices, possess the ability to analyze data in real time through the use of AI, ML, and algorithms, even in the absence of an internet connection. This technology yields numerous advantages, including superior decision-making, early detection of issues, and heightened efficiency. However, an IaaS infrastructure with top-notch computing and storage capabilities is an absolute necessity to analyze the data effectively.
2.2 Greater Focus on Security
Hackers might use cloud-based services to host malware through malware-as-a-service (MaaS) platforms or to distribute malware payloads using cloud-based apps and services. In addition, organizations often need more than they can secure in their IaaS footprint, leading to increased misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. Recognizing and reacting to an attack is called reactive security, whereas anticipating a dangerous event before it happens and intervening to prevent it is predictive safety. Predictive security is the future of cloud security.
The cybersecurity mesh involves setting up a distributed network and infrastructure to create a secure perimeter. This allows companies to centrally manage access to their data while enforcing security policies across the distributed network. It is a critical component of the Zero-Trust architecture. A popular IaaS cloud security trend is the multi-cloud environment. Multi-cloud proves effective when tools like security information and event management (SIEM) and threat intelligence are deployed.
DevSecOps is a methodology that incorporates security protocols at every stage of software development lifecycle (SDLC). This makes it convenient to deal with threats during the lifecycle itself. Since deploying DevOps, software releases have been shortened for every product release. DevSecOps proves to be secure and fast only with a fully automated software development lifecycle. The DevOps and security teams must collaborate to provide massive digital transformation and security. Digital services and applications need stronger and better security in exponential amounts. This methodology must be enforced in a CI/CD pipeline to make it a continuous process.
Secure access service edge (SASE) is a cloud-based architecture that integrates networking and software-as-a-service (SaaS) functions, providing them as a unified cloud service. The architecture combines a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) or other WAN with multiple security capabilities, securing network traffic.
2.3 Enhancement in Serverless Architecture
Serverless architecture apps are launched on demand when an event triggers the app code to run. The public cloud provider then assigns the resources necessary for the operation to occur. With serverless apps, containers are deployed and launched on demand when needed. This differs from the traditional IaaS cloud computing model, where users must pre-purchase capacity units for always-on server components to run their apps.
The app will incur minimal charges during off-peak hours with a serverless model. When there is a surge in traffic, it can scale up seamlessly through the provider without requiring DevOps involvement. A serverless database is a type of database that operates as a fully managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS). It automatically adjusts its computing and storage resources to match the demand, making it convenient for users. A serverless database is a cloud based service that eliminates the need to manage infrastructure, scaling, and provisioning. It allows developers to concentrate on constructing applications or digital products without the burden of managing servers, storage, or backups.
2.4 Evolution of Green Computing
In promoting green computing, infrastructure-as-a-service plays a significant role by allowing cloud providers to manage the infrastructure. This helps reduce the environmental impact and boosts efficiency by intelligently utilizing servers at high utilization rates. As a result, studies show that public cloud infrastructure is typically 2-4 times more efficient than traditional data centers, a giant leap forward for sustainable computing practices.
2.5 Emergence of Containerization
Containerization is a type of operating system virtualization where applications are executed in distinct user spaces called containers. These containers operate on the same shared operating system, providing a complete, portable computing environment for virtualized infrastructure. Containers are self-contained software packages operating in any environment, including private data centers, public clouds, or developer laptops. They comprise all the necessary components required for the right functioning of IaaS-adopted cloud computing.
3. Final Thoughts
With the expansion of multi-cloud environments, the emergence of containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes, and enhancements in serverless databases, IaaS is poised to become even more powerful and versatile in meeting the diverse computing needs of organizations. These advancements have enabled IaaS providers to offer a wide range of services and capabilities, such as automatic scaling, load balancing, and high availability, making it easier for businesses to build, deploy, and manage their applications swiftly in the cloud.
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Application Infrastructure
Article | December 15, 2021
The success of 5G technology is a function of both the infrastructure that supports it and the ecosystems that enable it. Today, the definitive focus in the 5G space is on enterprise use cases, ranging from dedicated private 5G networks to accessing edge compute infrastructure and public or private clouds from the public 5G network. As a result, vendor-neutral multitenant data center providers and their rich interconnection capabilities are pivotal in helping make 5G a reality. This is true both in terms of the physical infrastructure needed to support 5G and the ability to effectively connect enterprises to 5G.
Industry experts expect 5G to enable emerging applications such as virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR), industrial robotics/controls as part of the industrial internet of things (IIoT), interactive gaming, autonomous driving, and remote medical procedures. These applications need a modern, cloud-based infrastructure to meet requirements around latency, cost, availability and scalability. This infrastructure must be able to provide real-time, high-bandwidth, low-latency access to latency-dependent applications distributed at the edge of the network.
How Equinix thinks about network slicing
Network slicing refers to the ability to provision and connect functions within a common physical network to provide the resources necessary to deliver service functionality under specific performance constraints (such as latency, throughput, capacity and reliability) and functional constraints (such as security and applications/services). With network slicing, enterprises can use 5G networks and services for a wide variety of use cases on the same infrastructure.
Providing continuity of network slices with optimal UPF placement and intelligent interconnection
Mobile traffic originates in the mobile network, but it is not contained to the mobile network domain, because it runs between the user app on a device and the server workload on multi-access edge compute (MEC) or on the cloud. Therefore, to preserve intended characteristics, the slice must be extended all the way to where the traffic wants to go. This is why we like to say “the slicing must go on.”
The placement of network functions within the slice must be optimized relative to the intended traffic flow, so that performance can be ensured end-to-end. As a result, organizations must place or activate the user plane function (UPF) in optimal locations relative to the end-to-end user plane traffic flow.
We expect that hybrid and multicloud connectivity will remain a key requirement for enterprises using 5G access. In this case, hybrid refers to private edge computing resources (what we loosely call “MEC”) located in data centers—such as Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers—and multicloud refers to accessing multiple cloud providers from 5G devices. To ensure both hybrid and multicloud connectivity, enterprises need to make the UPF part of the multidomain virtual Layer 2/Layer 3 interconnection fabric.
Because a slice must span multiple domains, automation of UPF activation, provisioning and virtual interconnection to edge compute and multicloud environments is critical.
Implementing network slicing for interconnection of core and edge technology
Equinix partnered with Kaloom to develop network slicing for interconnection of core and edge (NICE) technology within our 5G and Edge Technology Development Center (5G ETDC) in Dallas. NICE technology is built using cloud-native network fabric and high-performance 5G UPF from Kaloom. This is a production-ready software solution, running on white boxes built with P4 programmable application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), allowing for deep network slicing and support for high-performance 5G UPF with extremely fast data transfer rates.
With NICE technology in the 5G ETDC, Equinix demonstrates:
5G UPF deployment/activation and traffic breakout at Equinix for multiple slices.
Software-defined interconnection between the 5G core and MEC resources from multiple providers.
Software-defined interconnection between the 5G core and multiple cloud service providers.
Orchestration of provisioning and automation of interconnection across the 5G core, MEC and cloud resources.
Architecture of NICE technology in the Equinix 5G ETDC
The image above shows (from left to right):
The mobile domain with radio access network (RAN), devices (simulated) and mobile backhaul connected to Equinix.
The Equinix domain with:
Equinix Metal® supporting edge computing servers and a fabric controller from Kaloom.
Network slicing fabric providing interconnection and Layer 2/Layer 3 cloud-native networking to dynamically activate UPF instances/interfaces connected with MEC environments and clouds, forming two slices (shown above in blue and red).
Equinix Fabric™ and multicloud connectivity.
This demonstrates the benefit of having the UPF as a feature of the interconnection fabric, effectively allowing UPF activation as part of the virtual fabric configuration. This ultimately enables high-performance UPF that’s suitable for use cases such as high-speed 5G fixed wireless access.
Combining UPF instances and MEC environments into an interconnection fabric makes it possible to create continuity for the slices and influence performance and functionality. Equinix Fabric adds multicloud connectivity to slices, enabling organizations to directly integrate network slicing with their mobile hybrid multicloud architectures.
Successful private 5G edge deployments deliver value in several ways. Primarily, they offer immediate access to locally provisioned elastic compute, storage and networking resources that deliver the best user and application experiences. In addition, they help businesses access a rich ecosystem of partners to unlock new technologies at the edge.
Secure, reliable connectivity and scalable resources are essential at the edge. A multivendor strategy with best-of-breed components complemented by telemetry, advanced analytics with management and orchestration—as demonstrated with NICE in Equinix data centers—is a most effective way to meet those requirements. With Equinix’s global footprint of secure, well-equipped facilities, customers can maximize benefits.”
- Suresh Krishnan, CTO, Kaloom
Equinix and its partners are building the future of 5G
NICE technology is just one example of how the Equinix 5G and Edge Technology Development Center enables the innovation and development of real-world capabilities that underpin the edge computing and interconnection infrastructure required to successfully implement 5G use cases. A key benefit of the 5G ETDC is the ability to combine cutting-edge innovations from our partners like Kaloom with proven solutions from Equinix that already serve a large ecosystem of customers actively utilizing hybrid multicloud architectures.
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