Mitigate Risk With Cloud Security Automation

Simplify enterprise compliance and security in the cloud with automation via the power of landing zones.

Sept. 19, 2024 | By John Raven

Cloud security looks different from on-premises security because automation provides smooth operation in the cloud.

In a recent article, we explored cloud foundations  and their critical role in any cloud adoption strategy. Cloud foundations serve as a launch point to the cloud, and landing zones simplify the deployment and management of cloud environments. Landing zones also ease the complexity of compliance through the power of automation.

Landing Zones and Cloud Adoption Framework

Landing zones enable your enterprise to easily deploy new features into the cloud or multiple cloud environments so your organization can apply infrastructure as code concepts. This allows you to manage your resources through code instead of through manual processes. It can simplify the management of your cloud environments and even spin up a new environment when needed.

Landing zones also provide strong strategic principles for cloud environments aligned to the cloud adoption framework (CAF) methodology. CAF offers a way to ensure that your cloud adoption strategy checks all the boxes to meet your enterprise’s needs.

CAF has five main pillars critical to cloud adoption:

• Security
• Identity
• Governance
• Resilience
• Architecture

While critical, security also plays a huge role in many large enterprises’ strategies. Industries like healthcare and finance need to meet incredibly complex compliance standards to maintain operations. Cloud landing zones can help simplify and standardize those processes.

Security in the Cloud

Unlike on-premises security, which tends to be more manual and hands-on, security in the cloud should be tied to your organization’s automation processes. Cloud foundations provide a predefined security configuration to meet the baseline needs of a service or policy.

Cloud security allows your enterprise to standardize compliance across workloads. By building everything around a landing zone, your cloud security standards can be updated alongside your policies, allowing preventative and actionable security measures.

Leveraging Cloud Security Automation

Implementing automation can have a huge impact on your enterprise. Cloud security automation not only allows your workforce to focus on more creative tasks instead of daily maintenance but can also help mitigate risk.

One of the biggest questions that keeps IT managers awake at night is this: What happens if our enterprise gets a virus and the whole environment becomes untrustworthy? Automation presents a solution. It provides information about the state of your infrastructure so you can take automated steps to fix or prevent issues.

Automation allows your enterprise to deal with ransomware and viruses more easily. Instead of manual migration of entire workloads, the power of automation can migrate these workloads with the press of a button. Even better, the system can recognize an issue and complete the migration process entirely on its own.

The Value of a Technology Partner

Establishing a cloud adoption framework and landing zone is a huge task—and one that having a technology partner can simplify. The right partner can interpret your organization’s recommendations and apply them in a meaningful way. With the help of a technology partner, you can streamline the process of deploying cloud architecture for specific use cases and maximize your technology ROI.

Streamline Security in the Cloud

Shifting from on-premises security to security in the cloud is no easy task, but the right technology partner can ensure your organization checks off every item on your cloud adoption to-do list. Enterprise cloud service leaders with diverse techniques and a broad customer base are your greatest resource. Seek out a partner with expertise and experience as you plan your enterprise cloud strategy.