Networking and Security in the Cloud

What You Need to Know About Networking and Security in the Cloud 

Many companies that have been relying on a legacy data center and want to start putting workloads into the cloud aren’t successful at first. These companies may be under the impression that transitioning to the cloud is easy, until they run into its complexities. Organizations may not be thinking about how cloud workloads and applications need to be supported by networking and security. 

Companies that are new to the cloud may not have familiarity with cloud-native tools or how to build the appropriate network and security strategy behind it. Today’s multicloud and hybrid cloud environments can be especially challenging to manage and administrate. 

To meet these challenges, organizations need more robust feature sets for network security. However, many technology providers only focus on one aspect instead of taking a holistic view of networking and security for cloud workloads. 

A holistic security strategy enabled by the right combination of security tools will empower your company to protect the network that supports your cloud, as well as the data, workloads, and applications that reside and run there. 

Security Challenges of New Cloud Models 

Newer, more flexible cloud models, such as hybrid cloud and multicloud, increase application and infrastructure platform complexity, taxing the network and security. Some applications may run in private or public cloud, while others may even run on different brands of public cloud. 

With multicloud, companies use a variety of cloud instances delivered by different cloud providers, increasing complexity, cost, and risk. Determining who is accountable for security is always difficult with the cloud, but it can be even trickier in a multicloud environment. 

Technology assets need to be connected and protected across all clouds in both multicloud and hybrid cloud environments. Networking and security should be consistent across every cloud instance, no matter who the provider is. Centralizing policy management will help provide consistency to your security posture in a complex cloud ecosystem. 

Controlling Network Security Risks 

Cloud network security should deliver visibility, intelligence, and a preventative approach to protecting apps, workloads, and content. As companies adopt more clouds, security teams want fewer tools, with more functionality. Instead, they are faced with inconsistent network security and a lack of threat prevention. 

Tools — such as microsegmentation and cloud firewall — block threats, prevent the lateral movement of threats, and protect outbound network traffic. Next-generation firewalls inspect all cloud network traffic for threats and high-risk content, allowing only safe traffic to enter and leave your cloud without sacrificing agility in the name of security. 

Protecting Cloud-Native Applications 

As cloud adoption accelerates, organizations have a responsibility to protect their digital assets on the network, such as mission-critical applications. Apps must be kept secure across the entire cloud infrastructure. Security teams need to understand application dependencies to make the right security decisions. 

Identity-based microsegmentation secures traffic between cloud-native applications, helps you see how applications communicate, and prevents the lateral movement of an attack. 

Getting Cloud Networking and Security Right

Networking and security challenges shouldn’t be a barrier to cloud adoption for your company. If you’ve had a bad experience transitioning to the cloud, now is the time to make things right with the correct approach to networking and security support. 

EchoStor focuses on networking and security, building a bridge to the cloud for our customers. Our Network Architects can build a robust networking and security solution for your company using solutions from the leading technology companies, including Cisco, VMware, and Palo Alto.