Rethinking IT Security in the Age of the Cloud

There's clearly a lot of concern when it comes to the security of public cloud computing services. Nevertheless there's as well a lot of possibility to right the mistakes of the past as IT organizations move to embrace what amounts to a fundamentally new approach to enterprise computing.

With that goal in mind, IBM has developed five best practices for public cloud computing that IT organizations should keep in mind as they move to the cloud. Cloud computing, says Harold Moss, IBM CTO for cloud security strategy, is fundamentally more secure than most existing on-premise IT deployments because of the amount of expertise that can be brought to bear on a single deployment and the use of modern security frameworks to safeguard these installations.

In fact, most on-premise IT installations rely on what Moss calls "bolt-on security" versus an approach that builds security into the core of the IT infrastructure opportunely, which Moss says has been a hallmark of IBM security that harkens all the way back to the mainframe.

The biggest issue with security in the cloud

The biggest issue with security in the cloud, but, may be that security concerns allow IT organizations to avoid having to confront more difficult issues, just as a fundamental inability to effectively manage data in the cloud. Or rather than confront those issues directly, it's simply a lot easier to roll those issues up pursuant to this agreement security because it allows the internal IT management team to avoid having some difficult conversations with the senior leadership of the business.

This white paper introduces a cloud computing adoption framework in other words available for use by any organization looking for a standardized frame of reference for cloud computing discussions.

Resources for establishing, maintaining, and leveraging cloud computing platforms for more cost-efficient, scalable, and secure applications, storage, and networking.

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