Amazon Redshift Security - Can They Really Solve Your Problems?

The adoption of cloud computing has been at a moderate pace despite having a plethora of cloud service providers offering various aspects of cloud computing services. One of the main reasons for this is concerns about data loss in the cloud, where cloud service customers have no control over where it is stored and how it is protected. However, certain measures significantly minimize, if not rule out, the possibility of data loss in the cloud. Responsibility for taking action to prevent potential loss of cloud aws redshift security data rests with both the cloud service provider and the user of the cloud service.

In the sections below, let's review the aspects of cloud data loss/unavailability, mentioning some real-life cloud outages observed in recent years. The approach to handling functions such as backup, redundancy, and data protection can indirectly lead to risky scenarios of data loss or data unavailability, as we will see shortly.

Cloud storage: data unavailability

Cloud storage is the concept of hosting network storage in the AWS redshift security data company of a service provider and making it accessible via web-based interfaces (APIs) in a ubiquitous way on a model of pay-as-you-go using an internet connection. Obviously, cloud storage removes the overhead of managing storage infrastructure internally. However, there are inherent risks of unavailability of cloud-hosted data, even at the best of service levels. This unavailability can be temporary, as the data is temporarily inaccessible, or perhaps permanent, such as incomplete data loss due to a severe outage at the cloud storage provider's facilities.

There are two different types of problems that cause data loss/unavailability: one is due to natural calamities such as lightning, storms, or earthquakes causing power failures, external network connectivity failures, etc., resulting in damage to cloud data centers and data. Another is due to human error in configuration, maintenance operations, or exceptional failure scenarios not handled by automated scripts that are intended to support failure recovery processes. In any case, the end result is the impact on the customer's business, smaller or larger, depending on the type of cloud storage service used.

Cloud service outages

Almost all major cloud storage providers have reported many outages in the recent past. Most of them, caused on the premises of cloud service providers, were transient with no data loss and were caused by configuration errors or hardware failures interruptions in email services provided by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the downtime of online services provided by AWS redshift security, Intuit, blog.satoricyber.com however, there are instances of outages that cause permanent loss of user data. These events raise questions about the viability of cloud computing. However, in most cases, implementing best practices comprehensively at cloud service provider facilities and regular audits to ensure compliance will dramatically reduce the chances of outages due to misconfigurations.

Cloud-based backup

A popular use case for cloud storage is data backup. It has cost advantages in terms of alleviating one of the infrastructure maintenance overhead and provides the ability to elastically scale storage based on requirements without having to purchase any hardware/software. However, certain limitations need to be addressed. When the data to store in the cloud is on the order of hundreds of gigabytes, then the organization (or even the individual user for that matter) needs to rethink its decision to use cloud storage. Most Internet service providers impose limits on bandwidth consumption or limited usage. In such a situation, the restore time to recover such large data on a limited bandwidth internet connection takes years, defeating the whole purpose of cloud backup. Therefore, data size and restore time are important factors to consider before using cloud-based storage backup services.

To take advantage of the cloud storage model, different approaches can be considered. First, you can keep a copy of your data locally on disk before sending it to cloud storage for backup. This approach ensures that the data being backed up is available locally on the servers for faster restores when needed. Second, in addition to having cloud storage from one provider, it is advisable to opt for another cloud storage provider for backup data replication, to take into account the case of data loss from the first provider of the company. cloud, however, remote the possibility. Obviously, these options will add to your costs, but it is worth the effort to have a data recovery option readily available.

Data redundancy

Cloud storage services are generally offered with multiple levels of redundancy at different prices. Based on the type and importance of data being stored in the cloud, organizations must decide on the level of redundancy required. Higher redundancy always means a higher premium, but at the same time, reduced redundancy generally means lower costs but higher risks of data loss. Therefore, organizations must strike a balance between cost and risk.

Data Protection

Most cloud storage providers have some mechanism or another to protect data in transit and data at rest. Data encryption is a popular mechanism to protect sensitive data from malicious use. Modern encryption techniques offer strong protection to customers AWS redshift security data in the cloud. Encryption key management must be robust as it is a very crucial aspect that can result in the best possible data protection or the worst possible data loss. A properly managed encryption key mechanism provides the strongest protection so that data cannot be viewed by unauthorized persons. The flip side of the scenario is when a genuine customer's encryption keys are lost or corrupted, in which case the data is not accessible forever and is therefore lost. To address this type of scenario, some cloud storage providers offer mechanisms to protect encryption keys by encrypting the key itself (Nasuni Key Escrow, for example). Cloud storage customers should opt for such a mechanism to avoid inadvertent loss of their valuable data.