Leveraging the built-in security capabilities of the Solaris Operating System, including Solaris ZFS and Solaris Containers, Sun reports some of its open source security tools can help in securing data in transit, data at rest, and data in use in the cloud, and these tools will work with cloud offerings from leading vendors including Amazon and Eucalyptus.

"Security remains one of the major concerns for enterprise customers moving to the cloud," said Glenn Brunette, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Security Architect, Sun. "Sun's new security tools will help address several of these fundamental issues and enable customers to realize the benefits of cloud computing while also managing risk and safeguarding critical assets."

The open source cloud security tools available include:

• OpenSolaris VPC Gateway: Provides customers with greater choice and flexibility when connecting systems to the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. The OpenSolaris VPC Gateway software enables customers to quickly and easily create a redundant, secure communications channel to a Virtual Private Cloud without the need for proprietary networking equipment.

• Immutable Service Containers (ISC): Delivers architectural patterns with associated deployment strategies that collectively define a highly secure foundation for service delivery. Incorporating many of the security features of the OpenSolaris Operating System, including Solaris ZFS, Solaris Containers, and Solaris IP Filter and Auditing, the ISC architecture leverages service compartmentalization and improved integration techniques to create virtual machines with significantly improved security protection and monitoring capabilities.

• Security Enhanced Virtual Machine Images (VMIs): Using many of the techniques developed for the Immutable Service Container project, Sun created several security-enhanced VMIs for the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). These virtual machines leverage industry accepted recommended practices including non-executable stacks, encrypted swap and auditing enabled by default. Beyond simple OpenSolaris images, Sun has also published integrated software stacks such as Solaris AMP and Drupal built on these security-enhanced images.

• Cloud Safety Box: Simplifies managing encrypted content in the Cloud. Using a simple Amazon S3-like interface, the Cloud Safety Box automates the compression, encryption and splitting of content being stored in the cloud on any supported operating system including Solaris, OpenSolaris, Linux and Mac OS X.

In a Dec. 17 press release, Sun also announced its support for the latest security guidance from the Cloud Security Alliance. The Cloud Security Alliance's "Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing - Version 2.1" is a new framework, which provides more concise and actionable guidance for secure adoption of cloud computing, and encompasses knowledge gained from real world deployments.

"Sun's technologies, best practices and work with leading industry organizations like the Cloud Security Alliance help provide our customers and partners with a framework for securing data in cloud environments," said Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun.

More Information

Sun's Cloud Security initiatives

Cloud Security Alliance Information and Download

Building Customer Trust in Cloud Computing with Transparent Security - Sun white paper

Sun's Cloud Technologies and Sun Open Cloud APIs

The Benefits of Open Standards and Open Source in Cloud Computing [...read more...]

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