The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

V I EWPO I NT Clearing the way to secure cloud integration CHR I S H I L L : BAR RACUDA SD-WAN solutions can help to address the networking, security and management challenge of the cloud T he vast majority of companies have got to grips with cloud infrastructure and have secured it. This is partly because there is a lot of knowledge that can be carried over from securing on-premises infrastructure. With cloud, you need a firewall – just as you do for the office network. You’ve got the right protections in place, you’re running regular checks on your applications and their various application programming inter- faces. They also understand the shared responsi- bility model, in which the major vendors ensure the infrastructure is secure, while you make sure the applications you’re putting there are secure. Many organisations are now rushing to secure their endpoints too – your homeworkers’ PCs and laptops must be locked down and fully protected. And staff need to be trained, with regular refresh- ers, on the latest spear-phishing and other threats that have all increased during the pandemic and the subsequent shift to home working. But what about the bit in the middle? How do you get data, user requests and everything else from one part of your estate to the other? The missing middle is increasingly coming into focus as organisations recognise it as a potential weak spot – just as the criminals do. Old technologies that predate the internet, such as leased lines, are not up to the job. Issues of security and latency can undermine and weaken your whole cloud strategy. Solving the conundrum is tricky, but new technologies can help. The difficulty for organisations is that these don’t map onto their existing understanding or skill sets of traditional networks. But it’s not just a technology issue: connectivity offerings today don’t just come from the usual network providers such as telcos. A recent study shows that 50 per cent of customers are sourcing their connectivity needs directly from their cloud provider, adding to the complexity of the subject. Secure Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) solutions can fix the networking challenge and the security challenge. They also ease the management challenge with functional- ity that allows you to set bandwidth and security controls, traffic optimisation and prioritising, and network monitoring all from a simple, cen- tral interface. All of which provides an extra layer of security with cost savings. Recent innovations in this area include third- party SD-WAN solutions, such as Barracuda’s CloudGen WAN, being natively built on Microsoft Azure, allowing customers to eas- ily connect from any location to the Microsoft Global Network via Azure Virtual WAN. This will allow any organisation to get the most out of its cloud investment without adding latency or opening the door to security threats. Security is always at the forefront of every project, and the desired goal is to build a secure automated cloud-based network. By using zero- touch deployment, Microsoft vWAN and Secure SD-WAN services deployed directly from the cloud will enable organisations to deploy solu- tions on their own terms. Chris Hill is regional vice president of public cloud for Barracuda Networks 65