There once was a time when organizations
wouldn’t consider deploying critical applications in the cloud. It was too much
of a business risk from both an access and an attack perspective—and for good
reason, since
28
percent of enterprises have experienced more security breaches in the public
cloud than with on-premises applications. This is changing, however. Over
the last few years, cloud computing has emerged as a serious option for
delivering enterprise applications quickly, efficiently, and securely. Today
almost 70 percent of organizations are using some cloud technology. And that
approach continues to grow. According to the latest
Cisco
Global Cloud Index report, global data center IP traffic will nearly triple
over the next five years. Overall, data center IP traffic will grow at a
compound annual growth rate of 25 percent from 2012 to 2017.
This growth is to support our on-demand, always connected lifestyle, where
content and information must be accessible/available anytime, anywhere, and on
any screen. Mobility is the new normal, and the cloud is the platform to deliver
this content. No wonder enterprises are scrambling to add cloud components to
their existing infrastructure to provide agility, flexibility, and secure access
to support the overall business strategy. Applications that used to take months
to launch now take minutes, and organizations can take advantage of innovations
quickly. But most IT organizations want the cloud benefits without the risks.
They want the economics and speed of the cloud without worrying about the
security and integration challenges.
Use of the corporate network itself has become insecure, even with firewalls
in place. Gone are the days of “trusted” and “untrusted,” as the internal
network is now dangerous. It'll only get worse once all those IoT wearables hit
the office. Even connecting to the corporate network via VPN can be risky due to
the network challenges. Today, almost anything can pose a potential security
risk, and unauthorized access is a top data security concern.
Going against the current trend, some organizations are now placing critical
applications in the cloud and facing the challenge of providing secure user
access. This authentication is typically handled by the application itself, so
user credentials are often stored and managed in the cloud by the provider.
Organizations, however, need to keep close control over user credentials, and
for global organizations, the number of identity systems can be in the
thousands, scattered across geographies, markets, brands, or acquisitions. It
becomes a significant challenge for IT to properly authenticate the person
(whether located inside or outside the corporate network) to a highly available
identity provider (such as Active Directory) and then direct them to the proper
resources. The goal is to allow access to corporate data from anywhere with the
right device and credentials. Speed and productivity are key.
Authentication, authorization, and encryption help provide the fine-grained
access, regardless of the user’s location and network. Employee access is
treated the same whether the user is at a corporate office, at home, or
connected to an open, unsecured Wi-Fi network at a bookstore. This eliminates
the traditional VPN connection to the corporate network and also encrypts all
connections to corporate information, even from the internal network.
In this scenario, an organization can deploy the
BIG-IP platform, especially virtual
editions, in both the primary and cloud data centers. BIG-IP intelligently
manages all traffic across the servers. One pair of BIG-IP devices sits in front
of the servers in the core network; another pair sits in front of the directory
servers in the perimeter network. By managing traffic to and from both the
primary and directory servers, the F5 devices ensure the availability and
security of cloud resources—for both internal and external (federated)
employees. In addition, directory services can stay put as the BIG-IP will
simply query those to determine appropriate access.
While there are
some
skeptics, organizations like
GE
and
Google
are already transitioning their corporate applications to cloud deployments and
more are following. As
Jamie
Miller, President & CEO at GE Transportation, says,
'Start Small,
Start Now.'
ps
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