Author: Howard M. Cohen
One of the early marketing slogans for cloud computing was, “To The Cloud!!!” Even then, this was misleading! The greatest value can be obtained when selecting and integrating best-of-breed cloud services from the most qualified sources. While this adds complexity, the right services are designed to work well together, and the right advisor can make it all work.
Integration. It’s a word we hear and use all the time, but sometimes its easy to forget the real, powerful value of it.
Since the earliest days of computing, we have integrated hardware from different manufacturers to provide superior performance, or to reduce total cost, or to access features unavailable from the primary system manufacturer. We’ve also integrated software from various developers to obtain the best-of-breed in the many different software categories required to provide a complete and comprehensive system solution.
“The Cloud” Was a Misnomer
The capabilities available from the global collection of servers and routers that formed the internet was originally dubbed “the cloud” when computer engineers drew an amorphous blob on the white board to illustrate a network of networks that was just too large and complex to draw. An observer thought the blob looked like a cloud.
That observer got close.
The reality was that each data center that housed servers itself represented “a” cloud. Given that there were thousands of such data centers, it could more accurately be said that the internet gives us access to many, many clouds.
Familiar Territory
Since each of these clouds produces and provides specific software-driven services, we find ourselves back in familiar territory, presented with the opportunity to integrate many of these services into our solutions. In many cases, we no longer need to concern ourselves with running each application on each cloud, but we do need to integrate them properly, making sure they work together well.
Concerning Ourselves with the Applications
When it comes to public software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud services, the SaaS provider is responsible for application delivery. Originally, applications were delivered to a computer via disks, tapes, or other media. These media were vulnerable to decay or damage.
Innovators found more centralized, better controlled ways to provide application delivery, such as virtual desktop interface (VDI). Eventually, SaaS became the premier solution for widespread application delivery.
For all the focus we put on hardware, networking, storage, and other infrastructure, the ultimate purpose of all of it is to deliver those applications. Computing is all about the data and the applications we use to manage data.
Private cloud applications are developed by the user, or a resource engaged by the user. These applications are deployed and delivered using methodologies similar to those employed by SaaS providers, but managed by the user or agents of the user. This covers application development, application deployment, and application delivery.
Application Protection
This brings us to the all-important, constant responsibility for application protection.
Application protection goes well beyond data and network security. Clearly, firewalls, intrusion prevention, detection, and protection, access control, encryption, and all the other technologies that provide security are critical.
Beyond that is the performance of each application. Users should not have to concern themselves with how their applications are being managed and protected, and most don’t. All they should be concerned with is that the application is there when they need it, and that it runs most efficiently and most reliably.
The original NIST Definition of Cloud Computing describes this as a “layer of abstraction” between the user and the underlying technology. Application protection is what enables this layer to remain abstract, so the user only needs to focus on the work they are doing without worrying about the performance or reliability of the application.
Application Protection for All Your Cloud Applications
Idenxt was developed to provide application protection across as many cloud applications as are included in your complete solution, beginning with the deployment of your application and continuing as long as you continue using each one. This is accomplished via the innovative combination of human expertise and AI-driven automation that is Idenxt.
For more information about how to assure application protection for your user community and your enterprise, contact us here.