Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Cloud computing security is going to catch up.

Please see this article in information week.

Google and IBM are teaming up together to provide cloud services. Google is already providing email and storage services and they want to go beyond that.

One interesting thing that was mentioned in the article is
"With the exception of security requirements, "there's not that much difference between the enterprise cloud and the consumer cloud," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said earlier this month during an appearance in Los Angeles with IBM chief Sam Palmisano."

One more quote from the article:
"The cloud has higher value in business. That's the secret to our collaboration."

Another thing I observed in the article is their planned usage of Xen.

Combining all of them put together:

  • Cloud computing requires security. Otherwise, Enterprises may not be able to offload their servers to cloud.
  • Cloud computing makes use of Virtualization.

I was giving choices in my earlier blog on *Cloud computing and Security*. Though information week article is not giving enough information on how the security services are going to be offered, but they will start thinking soon.

I am beginning to think that both kinds of models which I suggested earlier would be used.

  • Flexibility for Enterprises to put their preferred vendor security products as virtual appliances.
  • Providing security using one mega security appliance.

My prediction is that mega security appliance is required to provide typical infrastructure security. Virtual appliance flexibility will be provided for specialized security.

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