Well-Architected Frameworks for Cloud Service Providers (CSP)

 CSPs now have created thought leadership for architecting cloud-based workloads:

Amazon (AWS): https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/wellarchitected-framework.pdf

Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-the-microsoft-azure-wellarchitected-framework/

Google (GCP): https://cloud.google.com/architecture/framework

Oracle (OCI): https://www.oracle.com/cloud/architecture-center.html

Hypervisor Replication for Virtualization Security

Vendors like Bracket & BitDefender are rolling out virtualization security solutions meant for hybrid cloud deployment to negate rootkits & chip-based exploits (Spectre, Meltdown).

However, comprehensive coverage / support seems limited & you would think that the big cloud service providers (CSPs: AWS, MSFT Azure, GCP) have hardened their own hypervisors already.

VMware's partnership w/ AWS could pave the way for hardened hypervisors that can lift & shift among on / off prem deployments.

Azure, Big Data, & Security

So, Microsoft has provided further innovation and thought leadership with the cloud, Big Data, & security.

As of late, Azure now offers a preview (i.e., BETA) of its Storage Service Encryption (SSE) offering for its Data Lake Store offering to complement the add-on crypto services one may use for its HDInsight (i.e., Hadoop) offering, namely integration with DgSecure.

The jury is still out on the ease of use, as well as how robust these offerings are, but, it seems Microsoft is ahead of the curve with cloud & Big Data security.

Will AWS catch-up?

Securing Native Big Data Deployments v3.0: Apache Ranger & Atlas for DevSecOps, IAM, & InfoGov

Apache Ranger (http://ranger.apache.org/) and Atlas (http://atlas.incubator.apache.org/) offer some real thought leadership for securing native big data environments.

The question that remains is, will corporate IT teams embrace these new technologies?

I do see (cloud) providers (MS Azure, AWS) using these tools, as they need to for security compliance purposes.  I also see on-premise (hyper-convergence) solution vendors (e.g., Hortonworks, Cloudera) leveraging this as well.