Want to see for yourself? Start your ZPA test drive here.
Hybrid cloud models are characterized by orchestration between different platforms, allowing workloads to move between private and public clouds as computing needs and costs change. This gives organizations greater flexibility and more data deployment options because of the way their unique cloud offerings work.
Public cloud services from third parties like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud make resources such as storage and software as a service (SaaS) applications available remotely, either for free or through various pricing models. Public cloud providers are responsible for securing the infrastructure while customers are responsible for data security.
Private clouds are hosted on infrastructure accessible only to users in one particular organization. This can be third-party infrastructure or an organization’s own proprietary infrastructure (more often just called a data center). Private clouds offer organizations more control than public clouds, but they’re more expensive and harder to deploy.
Cloud data is often categorized by sensitivity, generally based on data type and relevant industry or government regulations. Less sensitive data is often stored in a public cloud, while highly sensitive data is stored in a private cloud.
David Smith, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow, Gartner
Hybrid environments are secret weapons in the world of cloud computing, offering benefits like lower operational costs, better resource accessibility, options for scaling and deployment, and more. But what about cybersecurity?
A hybrid cloud architecture can improve your organization’s security posture by helping you:
When you have the right cloud setup for your organization, an effective hybrid cloud security solution can help you:
Securing a hybrid environment is quite different from securing a traditional one, posing challenges especially for organizations with stringent regulatory requirements and/or more entrenched processes. Here are some common areas where you can expect to see issues surface:
Shared Security Responsibility
Make sure you understand what aspects of security fall to your providers and which fall to you. It’s important to ensure your providers can hold up their end of the deal and meet your compliance needs. Make business continuity plans part of any SLA to ensure the providers meet their uptime obligations, and have a disaster recovery plan in place to ensure your data and applications are protected.
Incident Handling
If an incident occurs within a cloud service provider's infrastructure, you'll need to work with them to resolve it. Other issues—such as potential commingling of data in multicloud environments, data privacy concerns that complicate log analysis, and how a provider defines an incident—can add to the challenge.
Application Security
Cloud apps can be exposed to a wide spectrum of security threats, and there are dozens of products built to solve individual pieces of the problem: software development life cycle security; authentication, compliance, app monitoring, risk management, and more. Managing all these individually is a massive logistical challenge, so you’ll want to look for an offering that combines as many of these functions as possible.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM is key to controlling access to resources, apps, data, and services. Its use changes significantly in the cloud, which often requires multifactor authentication to ensure secure access to resources. As you begin or extend your transition to the cloud, make sure you have the right management solution in place to avoid frustrated users and a deluge of trouble tickets.
Security in hybrid environments isn’t the job of one technology, but rather a latticework of solutions that work together to secure your clouds, help you manage them, and make it easier for your organization to work with them.
Some key components provide:
From one organization to the next, no two hybrid cloud environments look the same. Your needs and procedures will differ by industry, geography, and your specific hybrid architecture. That being said, a few general best practices hold true in any environment:
Zscaler secures your hybrid cloud environment with a cloud native zero trust architecture through Zscaler Private Access™ (ZPA™), part of the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ platform. As the world’s most deployed ZTNA platform, ZPA applies the principle of least privilege to give users secure, direct connectivity to private apps while eliminating unauthorized access and lateral movement.
Our leading ZTNA platform offers you:
Zscaler Private Access is zero trust network access, evolved.
Want to see for yourself? Start your ZPA test drive here.
Microsoft and Zscaler: Powering Fast and Secure Access to All Apps
Watch the webinarThree Keys to Implementing Secure Access to Hybrid Apps
Read the blogSecuring multicloud and hybrid access with ZPA
Watch the videoZscaler Private Access
Read the data sheetUsing SDP to Secure Access to Private Apps Across Multi-Cloud Environments
Read the white paper