IBM’s Cloud Security initiatives

Vamsicharan Mudiam,
Country Manager, Cloud Solutions,
IBM, India/South Asia

With cloud computing becoming preferred choice of the business more so in uncertain economic landscape, these are hey-days for the cyber villains who find cloud as greener pastures for making money by hacking cloud infrastructure. VARINDIA talked to Vamsicharan Mudiam, Country Manager, Cloud Solutions, IBM, India/South Asia, to know how IBM is addressing the security concesn when it comes to cloud. 

Security is genuine concern when moving to cloud. How do you address that?

Companies are increasingly aware of the business value that cloud computing brings and are taking steps towards transition to the cloud. But despite opening up some new possibilities for businesses, it is also throwing up new challenges. These challenges range from the implementation of cloud technology, to securing application and infrastructure, ensuring interoperability and governance at the same time. Fundamentally it is important for the cloud services providers to be able to assure the security of these newmodels in order to build trust and confidence. The key to establishing trust in these new models is choosing the right cloud computing model for your organization. Place the right workloads in the right model with the right security mechanisms. 

For the businesses that are planning to switch to cloud service and are looking for trust and assurance from the cloud provider, understandingthe service level agreements and the approaches to security is the key. Hence, using a proven methodology and technologies that candeliver appropriate security is the best plausible way to safeguard the business.

How does IBM help import initial backups manually before moving on the cloud?

By offering private or public cloud-based backup services, IBM enables you to choose and implement a plan forbackup, retention and retrieval so that you can gain security-rich, around-the-clock access to information.

IBM SmartCloud Managed Backup offering is a cloud-based servicethat utilizes data encryption and de-duplication technologies to protect the critical business data. The on-or-off-site data backup helpsbusinesses reduce operational risk and total cost of ownership and even can help in keeping critical business data available in the event of anoutage. 

IBM SmartCloud Archive provides a cloud-based data archiving solution that can index, search, retrieve and store archivedcontent more cost effectively-helping businesses leverage information for enhanced decision-making and better regulatory compliance management.

IBM SmartCloud Virtualized Server Recovery helps enterprises build cloud-based business resilience and meet their business demands at a lower cost.  This is a fully managed cloud service that provides clients an easy-to-use portal for remote access to restore business operations on IBM’s recovery infrastructure. It replicates both server software and associated data continuously. The service provides more flexibility and shorter recovery times than traditional disaster recovery solutions. By incorporating automation and cloud technologies, this service helps reduce the complexity associated with recovering to unlike hardware and helps improve reliability.

How do you ensure Data Recovery?

With data becoming increasingly dynamic, in addition to business resilience and security, risk management has emerged as a top priority in many organizations.

IBM SmartCloudResilience Services offer a suite of solutions designed to helpyour business leverage cloud services technologies to quicklyand cost effectively recover in the event of a disruption, dataloss or disaster. Our solutions, which include server recoveryand data protection and backup services, can help you efficiently manage risk, reduce costs and meet regulatory compliance mandates.

IBM recently launched Virtualized Server Recovery service in early 2013, which is a fully-managed cloud designed for organizations that need faster,more reliable and more affordable recovery of their IT infrastructures. This service has all the characteristics of anideal cloud-based server recovery solution discussed previously, while also offering four features that provide significantadditional value to organizations when evaluating cloud service providers. Some of the differentiators are:

1. The variety of server environments supported. This capability makes it easier to implement a cloud-basedrecovery solution, regardless of an organization’s data center mix

2. Increased speed and reliability 

3. Tiered service levels, allowing users to pick the most affordable options for their business needs

4. A web-based portal for ease of management, disaster recovery testing and real-time failover and failback.

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Ensuring Data Security

IBM helps businesses with a holistic approach to secure structured, unstructured, online and offline data across the enterprise. IBM can help: 

*    Discover and classify sensitive data

*    Protect data with masking, encryption and redaction

*    Secure and continuously monitor access to data in real time

*    Demonstrate compliance to pass audits

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How do you implement Security Strategies such as Software Defined Networks, Federated Hybrid Clouds and Industry Compliance?

IBM offers a broad portfolio of security products and services to help build more secure cloud environments with more intelligent security policies.

IBM Security solutions provide layered protection and deep insight across the infrastructure, when deployed in private and hybrid cloud environments. Capabilities such as federated single sign-on and privileged user management help provide simplified access and control across multiple cloud services for potentially millions of users. Database monitoring and web application scanning help reduce data and application vulnerabilities. 

IBM solutions also support security compliance with patch management for endpoints and virtualized machines. What’s more, these solutions increase visibility and enhance auditing of cloud activity within multi-tenant environments. 

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