Safe in the cloud | Bangkok Post: tech

TECHNOLOGY

Modern life is becoming more inseparable from cloud computing, the most obvious example of this being the widespread acceptance of social networks. The needs of individuals and businesses for online applications and services have catalysed growth.

True Corp, which is seeing growing demand for its True Internet Data Center, is among the businesses that believe cloud computing will become a core business in the near future.

According to research data from 2010, the worldwide cloud market was worth $37.8 billion last year and is forecast to reach $121.1 billion in 2015.

The continual growth of the cloud market is related to the explosive development of the "end products" that more than one billion users have been accumulated since the beginning of the internet's rapid growth phase from 1999 through 2010. With universal mobile device usage, the number of internet users could exceed the global population, reaching 10 billion by 2020, assuming many people have both fixed and mobile access. With industry needs and promotion by governments promotion, cloud computing has truly entered a new growth stage.

The good prospects for the cloud market are attracting investment from many different sources. Everyone acknowledges that using cloud computing will make data transmission faster and easier to manage. However, concern about security casts a shadow on the cloud's originally bright future. Information security is thus an extremely important cornerstone in the development of cloud computing.

Three years ago, Trend Micro became the first mover in cloud technology by starting R&D related to online services and applications. Almost half of the company's R&D staff have had experience in cloud-related software development, a much larger ratio than in other companies.

Cloud isn't a result, but rather a journey. All industries are moving in the direction of the cloud, and they will need strong security partners along the road from the physical server to the virtual server to the cloud platform.

Global consultancy IDC recently released a report on server security products, which it defined as a consistent programme that includes malware protection, desktop firewalls, host intrusion detection, and other precautionary safeguards to protect the server. This category also covers specialised protection for virtual server products.

With the continued integration of data centres, in addition to virtualisation, and the rise in usage of cloud applications, more and more computing performance is taking place in the data centre and server. Regardless of whether the server is physical or virtual, and regardless of whether the information is being stored in an industry data centre or in the cloud, the most important thing is that this data is guarded by the best information security protection.

According to a 2010 research report by Goldman Sachs, network architecture is moving from "fat edge, thin core" toward "fat core, thin edge" development. This change, brought on by the cloud, has clearly affected the four directions of development in the IT industry: virtualisation, data-focused protection, 3G network net devices, and cloud application.

These four areas cannot be independent, but are inseparable in cloud security. For instance, if one is using a virtual server from a public cloud, one must consider both the virtual server access right, and server integrity, as well as data protection.

In a cloud application, such as Salesforce.com, customers need to be able to track cloud application security, as well as their own data security. In the consumer market, when using mobile devices to access cloud applications, such as social networking or the Web, applications exist to provide users with both net device security and cloud application security.In integrating all four areas into one, the Hybrid Cloud Management Security program allows users to get the whole view of their security posture - physical, virtual and cloud.

Eva Chen is the founder and CEO of Trend Micro.