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According to a recent Gartner survey, as reported by InfoWorld, Cloud Computing was brought up as one of the top two engineering priorities for CIOs in 2010. What’s likewise interesting is that on the Top 10 list is likewise security technologies. The conception of cloud computing is not new. The economic viability of this model is rather compelling for a heap of enterprises, with the Gartner survey likewise mentioning cost reduction and bettered workforce effectiveness as two of the top 10 CIO business priorities. However, worries around security and relinquishing control over sensible corporate info have been stalling the widespread adoption of cloud computing in the last couple of years. But, getting clear is that the cloud computing era is approaching fast. And here’s why. Past experience has taught us that economic viability is a strong driver for innovation, and that drive will prevail over technical challenges. One example is the shift from mainframe computing paradigm, which eclipsed the marketplace in the 80s, to the client-server paradigm, which prevailed in the 90s. The mainframe generation was characterized by silos of data and voice communications. In this generation, mute terminals applied to connect to proprietary mainframes for specific yet fixed computing applications, with voice, video and selective information running on wholly segregated networks. The mainframe paradigm was simple and secure, with endeavors being completely in control of access privileges to selective information and applications. However, the economic gains of unifying voice, video, and info apps on a single converged network became a stronger, more prevailing force. Continuing this example, the client-server paradigm galvanized the adoption of TCP/IP worldwide, which in turn spurred the development of the internet and merged communications. These same conceptions are applicable to the cloud computing industry. The economic viability of pay-as-you-go for almost limitless elastic computing resources, required for fast and effective implementation of IT projects, will win a victory over the security concerns. The fact that existent cloud computing marketers are prospering and that major new players are entering the cloud computing market, is yet another indication that this industry is beginning to emerge with great success throughout the chasm. This market growth is an indication that the adoption of the technology is shifting from the early adaptors, who are visionary in nature, to the pragmatic early majority. There is ample proof that cloud computing is benefitting momentum. Amazon is substantially growing their Elastic Compute Cloud and S3 services and a stock price appreciating over 175% from January 2009; Google Apps Engine is challenging the Microsoft domination of the office applications, and Salesforce-dot-com’s stock price is appreciating over 180% in the last year, There are also new major players who are entering this market, including IBM with Blue Cloud and AT&T with Synaptic Hosting, and the expectation is that other major Service Providers will be adding cloud services to their portfolio in 2010. Independent of whether your corporation is an early adaptor or an early majority company, if you will be adopting cloud computing technologies in the foreseeable future, then an interesting question to ponder would be: “How would the adoption of cloud computing and SaaS apps affect the enforcement of corporate security policies for mobile users?” The established approach to enforcing corporate access security is to require mobile users accessing the corporate LAN to launch either SSL VPN or IPSec VPN clients. With these technologies, tunnels are conventional at the application or network layer respectively to ascertain confidentiality of selective information traversing these VPNs. The challenge of this approach is that mobile laborers who use their corporate remote access widgets to access the internet either don’t launch their VPN clients, or their sessions are routed directly to internet through a split tunnel connection provisioned on access routers. When remote users are accessing the corporate LAN through VPN, they are protected by firewalls with UTM (Unified Threat Management) functionality. This is not the case, however, when the users connect directly to the Internet. In this case, they are exposed to a multitude of risks, including viruses, phishing, and spyware. A practical example of this peril would be the following scenario. Consider that you are using your corporate laptop to log from your home into the Dolphin Stadium and the Miami Dolphins team website to buy tickets for the 2010 Super Bowl football game. What you don’t recognise is that this web website has been hacked into (based on a real scenario*), and it downloads and installs a malicious code on your laptop. This code acts as Trojan and may install a keylogger code and disable the anti-virus application on your laptop. After purchasing your tickets to the Super Bowl, you determine it’s time to get numerous work done and log into your Google Apps. Unfortunately, your password to Google Apps is captured by the keylogger and compromised at that time. This scenario could have been warded off with a mobile connection manager blocking the remote access to Google Apps after detecting that the Antivirus application is disabled. As the control point in the cloud computing era is shifting from VPN to internet connection, the connection manager will be required to enforce corporate policies for endpoint security. The not so long ago declared iPass Open Mobile Platform has been designed with this paradigm shift in mind. The Open Mobile Client is always running on the mobile device, which enables it to become the uttermost control point for all mobility purposes, no matter of whether the accessed apps reside in the cloud or on the corporate LAN. The client in most cases is transparent to the end users, enforcing policies in the background. Policies may include optimal network selection, launching and passing on user credentials to VPN clients, and performing end-point integrity checks and remediation. The ECA (Event Condition Action) functionality on the Open Mobile Client empowers IT administrators to enforce corporate endpoint security policies. ECA is employed to enforce both pre- and post-connect policies and spans all over all integrated technologies (e.g. VPNs) and application (e.g. UTM apps running on the mobile device). *Based on a real hacking scenario, please refer to the PC World website for the article “Super Bowl Related Websites Hacked.” or http://www.pcworld.com/article/128750/super_bowlrelated_web_sites_hacked.html. Most helpful customer reviews 8 of 9 people found the following review helpful. 5 of 7 people found the following review helpful. 2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. |


