Security as a Service — few words

I am going to write after a long time. Don’t know why I messed up my writing with my talking. In this post I would like to focus on an aspect that looks promising for service providers, that holds alot of thinking for service takers, and that demands alot of creativity when it comes to seperating on-premises security notions to the off-premises security notions. By default, what we assess from the bare term is that Security might not be dealt with weapons that one posses to tackle attacks. Why would someone think of getting security services that are coming entirely from outside? But when thought and provided in a manner that is much more intuitive than the notions of endpoint security or in-network access gateways, this new tool can give benefits to companies in search of a secure off-the-hook solution and new business models for the security service providers.
Costs for such a service should not be considered as benefit, because normally costs adjust themselves to come to a point where it becomes equally costly as compared to buying a solution without a cloud aspect into it. But reliability, and 24/7 access to a service that meets security can be a good starting point. Security assurance being the second parameter will be a good thing to consider. Two reasons which are provided by the security service providers for providing security-as-a-service are economies of scale and streamlined delivery mechanisms. What exaclty that means? Reach to SMBs? pick-your-own-profile type features? or what? In this respect all consumers have to do is to get educated. They have to know what exactly security-as-a-service offering implies, what it caters for, why its beneficial, and why they have to consider it in decision making. This is the responsibility of the service provider to provide needed documentation, demos, etc to educate the consumer. Since economies of scale means it might reach much more consumers, so an emphasis of education is a must have by the service provider.
I will end few words here. I hope to come back with a deeper look into that.
Till then have a nice time.

HP CloudSystem landscape!

HP CloudSystem

1. Utilizes HP CloudSystem Matrix, used for priavte cloud and IaaS
2. Especially optimized for HP ProLiant, HP Integrity Servers, HP Storage, and HP Networking
3. VMware, Microsoft HyperV and Integrity VMs supported
4. It helps you BUILD and MANAGE cloud services
5. Private, Public, and Hybrid Support
6. 3 Dimentions viz HP CloudSystem Matrix (Private Cloud), HP CloudSystem Enterprise (Hybrid Cloud), HP CloudSystem Service Provider (Public or Hosted-Private (SaaS-based) Cloud)
7. HP, EMC, and NetApps disk-arrays for storage
8. HP, Cisco, and Brocade Communications switches for Networking
9. Core of the system is HP Server Automation Software (SA)
10. APIs are due to be matured-Keep looking, they are making APIs to integrate with Public Clouds

HP and IBM both have quite agile strategies for enabling cloud computing. Waiting for a major public cloud vendor who bases itself on HP.

Verizon-Terremark Cloud Computing Offerings!

Verizon-Terremark:
Cloud Products:

1. vCloud Express

a- Pay as you go
b- Get started with a credit card
c- scalable development platform

2. Enterprise Cloud TM

a- Robust Security Suite
b- Dedicated resource pools
c- Integration with Private Networks

3. vCloud Datacenter

a- Hybrid Cloud Compatible
b- Dedicated resource pools
c- Manage with vCloud Director

Terremark Enterprise Cloud TM
a- vmware enabled, clustered hypervisor, HA,
b- Yearly subscription based, means NOT pay-as-you-go
c- Basic package contains 5 GHz and 10 GB RAM
d- Multiple NICs allowed
e- Switches can be created, bridge and routing facility
f- All the functionalities of vCloud Express included
g- Maximum server size allowed is 4 VPUs and 16 GB RAM
h- VMware .vmdk files cannot be exported from private network to Enterprise Cloud (Not yet supported)
i- LAN-LAN connection from private network to Enterprise Cloud can be made
j- Integrated HA firewalls availabe, Private vLANs
k- Infinicenter Management Console
l- No auto-scaling as in AWS (readers! please confirm)

vCloud Express:
a- API access available (RESTful)
b- Web interface, CLI interface
c- Virtualization technology is VMware + clustered hypervisor with VMware vSphere and VMware HA
d- Up to 8 Virtual processor units, upto 16GB virtual ram
e- Hardware load balancing
f- Persistant storage available—just like Amazon’s EBS
g- Horizontal (add servers) and vertical (add RAM) server scaling
h- Blank server available to install OS from ISO
i- Only 1 NIC is allowed. (http://bit.ly/kYBf7o)
j- IPSec and PPTP supported

vCloudExpress Architecture

vCloud DataCenter
a- Enterprise-class solution
b- Hybrid Cloud
c- VMware vCloud Director Integration
d- Local VMware VMs can be run on this service
e- Available in limited beta
f- Would be an extension of Terremark Enterprise Cloud