Navigating Multicloud Networking and Security Complexities

By Josh Neame, CTO, BlueFort Security.

Today, most organisations are adopting a multi-cloud approach; leveraging multiple cloud providers to support scalability, flexibility and cost efficiency. This approach comes with complications.? Each provider has its own tools and processes that increase management effort and expand the attack surface. Customers and Boards of Directors have also become increasingly concerned with data privacy, elevating the need for consistently strong security measures.??

A 2024 survey found that the top multi-cloud security challenges were:?

• Ensuring data protection and privacy?

• Having the right skills to deploy and manage solutions?

• Understanding how solutions fit together??

Multi-cloud challenges don’t just impact your security team. As the environment expands from traditional on-premises data centres to multiple clouds and edge sites, these locations must be securely and reliably connected to support business operations. The first step towards simplifying multi-cloud, is understanding why it’s so complicated.?

Operational Differences Across Platforms?

Each cloud provider is unique, offering different tools, configurations and networking protocols, which can make managing multi-cloud environments cumbersome. Even terminology may vary between providers. Many organisations also maintain an on-premises environment and network, in addition to multiple clouds. These numerous environments result in inconsistent security policies, an exponential increase in management overhead, and applications or services that don’t work together like they should.??

Cloud Skills Gaps?

Many IT teams are highly skilled in traditional on-premises security models but may lack expertise in cloud-native security practices. Cloud environments require an understanding of virtualised security tools, such as security groups and network controls that vary by provider. This gap in skills creates a steep learning curve that can’t be solved with just another tool.?

Limited Visibility??

You likely have distinct tools and monitoring protocols for each cloud and your on-premises environment, meaning there’s no single end-to-end view of your security posture. This makes it challenging for IT teams to respond swiftly to issues, or to report status to executives and the Board. Limited visibility also complicates compliance efforts, which can be especially challenging for organisations in regulated industries like finance or healthcare, where accurate and real-time security monitoring is essential.?

Technical Challenges?

Ensuring that different cloud environments work together seamlessly poses significant technical hurdles. You may have encountered issues with overlapping IP ranges and other compatibility barriers that complicate network configurations. This is especially challenging for IT teams who must support distributed application architectures and microservices. Manual configuration of dynamic cloud environments is time consuming, which in turn slows time to market.?

Securely Connect Your Multi-Cloud Environment?

F5? Distributed Cloud Services uses a SaaS-based platform to provide security and connectivity solutions for your applications, and APIs in any environment. Secure multi-cloud networking solutions employ automation and a single, unified console to simplify the process of connecting applications and networks across multiple cloud providers and on-premises environments.??

This approach centralises controls and policy management to reduce overhead, while providing better visibility into security and performance. It eases multi-cloud interoperability by handling IP address collisions automatically for a seamless network. Self-service tools allow DevOps teams to deploy applications within security and networking guardrails instead of relying on IT, resulting in faster releases.?

Securing Multi-Cloud Is a Journey ?

BlueFort Security collaborates with F5 to provide solutions and support so you can securely and confidently operate a multi-cloud environment. With BlueFort Evolve, the UK’s most feature-rich cybersecurity subscription program, this process goes beyond simply implementing another tool—it builds a strategy to solve today’s pains, and gets you fit for the future with the help of on-demand expertise.?

The journey begins with assessments and F5 discovery tools to understand your environment, identify your organisation’s unique needs, and uncover areas for improvement. BlueFort experts work with you to define a path to success, no matter how challenging your situation. Throughout the process, engineers who are highly qualified on F5 solutions are available any time, to help you solve issues as they arise. This access allows you to secure your multi-cloud environment effectively and quickly, even if your in-house team is still building expertise.?

Simplify Cybersecurity with BlueFort and F5?

Multi-cloud doesn’t have to be complicated. BlueFort Security in partnership with F5, provides the services, guidance and integrated solutions to help you confidently manage, secure and optimise your environment. Get the benefits of multi-cloud without increasing your cyber risk or IT overhead.?

BlueFort is trusted by more than hundreds of customers and secures over 2 million users. To learn how we can help you build a more secure and connected multi-cloud environment, contact us today.?

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Source:?

1. Cybersecurity Insiders and ISC2, 2024 Cloud Security Report, April 2024?