Make your journey to the cloud safer and more secure
Strong cybersecurity, privacy and trust practices are imperative to protecting your business and people from online threats and risks. According to Cisco’s 2023 Global Networking Trends Report, 41% of respondents said that securing user access to cloud-based applications is a top priority. This means most organizations will be tasked with managing and securing a hybrid cloud environment.
What is a hybrid cloud?
Many businesses are seeking the benefits of cloud services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Some of the most well-known public cloud services include Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Public cloud providers secure the infrastructure while customers must secure data and workloads themselves.
Private clouds are maintained on-premises, with the data available only to authorized users. You can rely on a technology partner to provide your private cloud or build and manage it with your own IT team and data centre.
Companies have been shifting workloads and apps from their data centres to multicloud environments. For various reasons — complexity, regulations, staffing issues — many are using the hybrid cloud. The Cisco report found 92% of IT leaders use more than one public cloud.
What is hybrid cloud security?
Before internet and cloud services came into being, cybersecurity involved protecting on-premises systems and data centres. Hybrid cloud security encompasses on-premises, cloud services and everything in between.
The hybrid cloud lets you manage workloads between your premises and the public cloud. But it also brings complex security issues.
Top security risks of hybrid cloud
Traffic to the cloud, into the cloud, and across clouds must be secured and encrypted. When networking models differ across clouds it can be difficult to create secure connections.
When different cloud infrastructures are connected, real-time threat detection systems can sometimes produce false alarms.
In addition to network-related vulnerabilities, SaaS apps can create risk when users fall prey to phishing scams or experience frustration with authentication. This can lead them to employ workarounds that make it harder to keep systems secure.
Hybrid cloud security architecture elements
Many organizations look to a unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution to provide seamless IT management. Or they might choose cloud-managed access with enforcement via a virtual firewall appliance.
The essentials of hybrid cloud security architecture include cloud-based security services such as a secure web gateway, cloud-delivered and virtual firewalls, DNS-layer security, traffic visibility and analytics, and data loss prevention. The security solution must also be able to receive real-time proactive threat updates. This will help keep your network, data and users secure while freeing your IT team from tracking issues manually.
Best practices for hybrid cloud security
As you secure your hybrid cloud, choose a platform that can easily adapt to market changes. You may want to consider platform that allows a choice between on-premises and cloud security functions — whichever is right for your environment.
You’ll also want to streamline your environment. Look for solutions that allow you to manage everything through one dashboard rather than multiple interfaces. You’ll want to see the overall health of each network and solve issues before they become critical.
Consider the skills needed to implement, configure and manage the security solution. You’ll reduce costs and human error when you choose technology that’s easy to use and does not require specialized training.
How Meraki can help secure your hybrid cloud
Meraki’s cloud platform is robust yet simple to use. It can scale to fit the needs of businesses, supporting small businesses with even a handful of users.
With Meraki, you can move at “the speed of cloud,” automatically responding to new threats in minutes. You’ll be able to deliver exceptional experiences that are seamless and secure yet easy to deploy and manage.
Cisco security technologies are delivered and updated through the cloud automatically. As new updates become available, they deploy them to all customers, so you don’t have to think about upgrades or downtime.
Benefit from hybrid cloud security today
No matter where you are in your cloud journey, the Meraki platform can manage and secure your network from campus or branch to data centre and multicloud.
