More and more businesses are opting for the hybrid cloud approach, meaning they share the burden of their cloud storage requirements across both cloud - whether public or private - and on-prem.
This sort of environment works well for several reasons, allowing enterprises to reap the benefits of different systems simultaneously while also minimizing their relevant downsides.
With firms such as Atlassian altering their business strategies to reflect this surge in hybrid cloud popularity, it’s worth noting exactly why this approach is so popular.
For example, hybrid cloud users benefit from both the enhanced scalability and flexibility of a public cloud provider while also ensuring their more sensitive data can remain in a centralized on-premise location.
Splitting workloads between two very different systems has its disadvantages, though. Keeping on top of complexity across different environments can be difficult, especially concerning security.
Hybrid cloud security can cause a world of problems for the typical IT decision-maker (ITDM), as threat levels grow exponentially the more spread out the ecosystem is and the more application or data sprawl is present.
Just as the relevant threats are evolving though, so too is hybrid cloud security. Cyber security systems are ever-changing and adapting to meet the needs of enterprise customers operating on a hybrid cloud.
The hybrid cloud problem
Data management is a fundamental concern from a security perspective in a hybrid cloud world. Any enterprise will need to work with a vast array of different data streams, some more sensitive or security-intensive than others.
Where businesses may wish to process some of the more sensitive data in private clouds or on-premises data centers, they will also likely want to process other data through the public cloud in the interest of efficiency.
Problems occur when navigating between these different environments. Any security decisions made regarding a business's public cloud must be reflected in some way in the business's private cloud or on-premises systems.
This doesn’t mean that security decisions in different environments will be the same, it just means that one will have to take the other into account in order to be at its most effective.
Hybrid cloud environments are also complex by their very definition, making security and visibility difficult. Experts have lamented the growing complexity of hybrid cloud environments for years now and they’re only getting more difficult to manage as size increases.
Findings from 451 Research showed that over half (51.8%) of respondents consider hybrid cloud storage to be less secure, putting poor security at the top of this technique's disadvantages.
“Hybrid cloud at its peak has on-premises and public cloud workloads operating as one cohesive identity. But achieving this is near impossible, as architectures are vastly different,” according to Forrester analyst Tracy Woo in a blog post from last year.
Hybrid cloud security evolution
Luckily, CIOs and CISOs looking to secure their hybrid cloud environments have many, ever-evolving options to choose from when it comes to implementing secure frameworks in their systems.
Companies are constantly innovating in terms of solution provision for hybrid cloud. Take a recent announcement from Dell, which promised to “simplify” hybrid cloud management with its Apex Cloud platform.
Other, more security-focused innovations and developments are also prevalent in the industry, and independent bodies and analysts offer a wealth of advice on how best to achieve a secure hybrid cloud environment.
The US National Security Agency (NSA), for example, advises standardizing vendor-agnostic cloud tools to help organizations monitor security across different environments.
This helps mitigate the risk of silos and skill gaps across multiple systems, where discrepancies between configurations and unnecessary data flows can create added security issues.
Forrester’s Woo advises that businesses go further than simply adopting hybrid cloud strategies. Instead, they should set up an internal “cloud center of excellence” that can focus on training users in managing hybrid cloud environments.
Enterprises should also try to build “reusable assets” that “avoid reinventing the wheel.” This means that assets should be written in low-code formats that can be easily adapted as businesses move forward.
There are also various cloud management solutions to choose from, designed to encourage collaboration between a business's different environments. These can help to control endpoint security more easily, as well as ease the burden of IT management overall.
AI and hybrid cloud security
As with every technology in the current landscape, AI promises to breathe new life into the management of hybrid cloud security by offering tools that help to automate complex security processes.
AI already shows great promise in overhauling security as a whole, with tools from many of the big names in tech offering solutions to the already overburdened CISO through visibility and workflow optimization.
Google’s intended acquisition of security firm Wiz is a clear example of this, despite it being called off by the latter. The move showed a clear desire on behalf of Google to increase its offerings in the cloud security market, suggesting that it’s top of mind for the tech giant.
The industry will no doubt see more tools geared towards hybrid cloud environments specifically, with solutions designed to manage risks across both public and private clouds, as well as within on-premise storage.
