Book Image

VMware vCloud Security

Book Image

VMware vCloud Security

Overview of this book

Security is a major concern, in particular now that everything is moving to the cloud. A private cloud is a cloud computing platform built on your own hardware and software. The alternative is to deploy the services you need on a public cloud infrastructure provided by an external supplier such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Cloud, or HP Public Cloud. While a public cloud can afford greater flexibility, a private cloud gives you the advantage of greater control over the entire stack. "VMware vCloud Security" focuses on some critical security risks, such as the application level firewall and firewall zone, virus and malware attacks on cloud virtual machines, and data security compliance on any VMware vCloud-based private cloud. Security administrators sometimes deploy its components incorrectly, or sometimes cannot see the broader picture and where the vCloud security products fit in. This book is focused on solving those problems using VMware vCloud and the vCloud Networking and Security product suite, which includes vCloud Networking and Security App, vShield Endpoint, and vCloud Networking and Security Data Security. Ensuring the security and compliance of any applications, especially those that are business critical, is a crucial step in your journey to the cloud. You will be introduced to security roles in VMware vCloud Director, integration of LDAP Servers with vCloud, and security hardening of vCloud Director. We'll then walk through a hypervisor-based firewall that protects applications in the virtual datacenter from network-based attacks. We'll create access control policies based on logical constructs such as VMware vCenter Server containers and VMware vCloud Networking and Security security groups but not just physical constructs, such as IP addresses. You'll learn about the architecture of EPSEC and how to implement it. Finally, we will understand how to define data security policies, run scans, and analyze results.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
VMware vCloud Security
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 2. Securing Your vCloud Using the vCloud Networking and Security App Firewall

The general, well-accepted approach to securing IT is to employ a layered approach—shown in the following figure—often referred to as defense-in-depth. Physical datacenters have traditionally been protected using a combination of hardware appliances external to the system and agents that run within a system's operating system.

The use of technologies such as firewalls, Intrusion Protection System (IPS), and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) greatly enhances the corporate security environment when deployed and managed effectively. Inclusion of these is critical to the corporate IT defense-in-depth strategy as mentioned earlier.

Without a doubt, this is one of the most important aspects of a security and defense-in-depth strategy. The term defense-in-depth has been used extensively in a myriad of security papers over the years in one way or another, but the key message is still the same—providing multiple levels...